The handheld video game market is one with which I have had a long flirtation. Home consoles have always been my first love, mostly because the images are larger, clearer, and until recently, overwhelmingly superior graphically. Part of that has been a matter of function over form. Nintendo has been so dominant in the handheld market that they’ve been able to advance the technology at their own pace.

In fact, that has long been their business philosophy in the first place: software, not hardware, drives the business, so why push the hardware before it’s necessary to do so? As a result, it took Nintendo 12 years to advance from 8-bit greyscale to 16-bit full-color. They had competition, in the form of Atari’s Lynx, Sega’s Game Gear, and lesser players such as the WonderSwan and GamePark 32, but they’ve never faced anything approaching stiff competition when it comes to pocket gaming.

With Sony’s PlayStation Portable, there is a very real likelihood that the handheld market as we know it could be poised to undergo a radical transformation. Understand that I say that as one who honestly expects greater things from the Nintendo DS hardware than from the Sony PSP hardware. I see more potential in the DS, more potentially very cool things that could come from the reigning champ’s corner, but as I look at the PSP, I can’t help but think that Nintendo has a ton of work cut out for them, and all the more so for having squandered the six-month North American lead time that Sony so graciously gave them when they pushed the PSP back by three months or so.

I’ve spoken with several people, both inside and outside the industry, and the common expectation seems to be that we’re going to see several ports of existing console titles, simply because the similarities between the PS2 and PSP architectures make it more cost-effective for the developers to do so. A glance at the launch library of the PSP would seem to bear that out, at least in part. We’re seeing PSP iterations of Spider-Man 2: The Movie, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, Wipeout, Twisted Metal, 989 Sports’ entire sports line, and the list marches on. All of these franchises have previously seen life on the PlayStation 2 (and other consoles, in some cases), and so it makes sense that they would be among the very first titles to show up on a Sony portable.

Those same individuals have also expressed concern at the PSP pricing structure. Will consumers, they ask, be willing to spend $50 for a portable version of a game they already own for the PlayStation 2? It’s a valid concern, and one imagines that the PSP launch of Gran Turismo 4 will yield the answer.

Honestly, however, those are the only significant road bumps I see ahead for the PlayStation Portable. They aren’t the only flaws, but they are the only ones I can see negatively impacting Sony in a major way. Aside from those concerns, my first impression of the PSP has been overwhelmingly positive.

While both Sony and Nintendo have protested that they aren’t “directly” competing with one another, that really isn’t likely to be the case. Parents aren’t going to draw the distinction between “geek gadget” and “kids’ toy,” since the gaming hobby as a whole still suffers somewhat from the perception that “games are for kids.” Older gamers, Sony’s self-proclaimed target audience, may flock to the PSP for its “sexy” factor, but these are also, by and large, the same gamers who weaned themselves on the Nintendo teat twenty years ago. Old loyalties die hard, and so even with the success of the PlayStation brand, Sony is still going to have to fight Nintendo for control of those loyalties. Which means: hook gamers on your games.

There are two ways you can do that: through straight gameplay, as Nintendo is trying to do, or through astounding visuals, which has historically been the path of least resistance for those who would dethrone Nintendo. This, not so coincidentally, is the route Sony has taken with the PSP. The screen is every bit as gorgeous as advertised. Standard 16:9 widescreen means a greater field of vision in gameplay, while minimizing the disruption to the movie displays when watching films on the UMD format. The near-PS2 quality graphics pack an “oomph” that just isn’t present on the GBA SP or NDS, and that’s going to be a significant factor in Sony’s favor.

A parent buying the machine will be concerned about price, certainly, and that will help Nintendo retain some business, but a parent buying for the long term is going to want the system with the best graphics, so as to minimize future discontent from the kids, and this is where Sony is going to strike the first blow in the battle for hearts and minds.

The one flaw I see with the screen is that lighter colors, such as flesh tones (and this is particularly noticeable in the movies) have a greater tendency to blur when movement occurs. The Spider-Man 2 UMD movie highlights this, particularly with Kirsten Dunst.

The sound from the system is also incredible. I’m a little bit concerned that they chose to use volume buttons rather than a volume wheel – I see the potential for those to wear out more quickly than a wheel would – but the sound coming from the PSP when I plug a pair of headphones in absolutely dwarfs anything I’ve heard from either of the Nintendo handhelds, and Nintendo’s machines aren’t exactly a slouch in the audio department. Unfortunately, I have to crank the volume nearly all the way up to hear anything when the earphones are unplugged, and I fear that will detract from the battery life, especially for movies (around two hours).

The battery life, incidentally, varies based on what it is you’re doing with your PSP. It’s been reported that you get around two hours of battery life when watching a movie, and about 4 hours or so while playing games, but those numbers don’t appear to be hard and fast. Or, rather, the system appears capable of judging how much time remains if you continue the current use. After spending about an hour and a half watching Spiderman 2, the battery life indicator suggested I still had around 1:45 of charge time left before needing a recharge. Of course, by the time I got to that point, the optical drive was no longer in use, so there you go. This is going to be the PSP’s weak spot to a certain extent, since the Nintendo handhelds are so darned efficient with their own battery life.

The possibility of the PSP dying midway through an airplane flight, or when you’re just plain gaming on the go, well…there’s an increased risk. There’s no getting around that. Fortunately, there are a couple of design functions that help extend the life of the battery. First, if there’s no active drawing happening on screen for a certain period of time – let’s say you’ve popped a game in, but gotten distracted by something else and haven’t started yet – the screen automatically dims. You can change this setting in the system settings menu. You can choose to turn the auto-dim off after 2, 5, or 10 minutes, or you can tell it never to dim the screen automatically. You also have the ability to manually dim the screen to preserve battery life, as well.

Secondly, a hold switch is available. Obviously, this works in a manner somewhat similar to the iPod hold switch, in that it prevents the PSP from accidentally turning itself on. Moreover, if you turn on the ‘auto-sleep’ function, then after a certain period of inactivity, the system will automatically go dormant. This is great for if you set the system down to do a couple of chores, and have it take longer than anticipated, or if you forget to set the hold switch and the system somehow comes on under its own power. The Auto-Sleep, like the Auto-Dim, has four settings: Off, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes.

And, of course, you can turn the WLAN switch on or off. If you’ve got it turned on, the system will actively broadcast, searching for either another PSP to compete against in “Ad-Hoc” mode (which is a fancy way of saying head-to-head), or, with certain games, “Infrastructure” mode (which is a fancy way of saying true online).

None of these features will give the PSP battery a life on par with that of the GBA SP, but judicious use of all three will help give you more playtime in the long run. Another tip: wear those earphones Sony gives you. Not only are they just about the most comfortable ear buds I’ve ever used, but as I said earlier, using the headphones makes it much easier to hear the sound, and as a result allows you to keep the volume at a lower level…which will in turn extend the battery’s usable life.

I haven’t talked much about the music function of the PSP, because I’m honestly not sure how well that’s going to catch on. The included 32 MB Memory Stick Duo Pro can hold 8 songs or so, if you don’t save any game data, and the larger Memory Stick Duo Pros are fairly expensive, with the 1 GB models clocking in at anywhere from $90-$150. Considering that you’ll be able to use the LAN functionality of the PSP to, say, download roster updates or extra game levels, a larger Memory Stick might be a wise investment anyway. We’re just not sure at the moment whether investing in a larger Memory Stick specifically for music, as opposed to one of the myriad hard drive-based music players, is necessarily the way to go.

The controls are fairly smooth. The reported “Square button” issue with the Japanese units hasn’t been a factor for us, as the unit we’ve been using has performed flawlessly with the face buttons. Rather, the issues here have been with the analog stick. It slides, rather than leans, so controlling, say, your vehicle in Wipeout isn’t as effortless on the PSP as it is on the PS2, at least not at first blush. With a little experience, it becomes second nature, but it’s definitely not what we’re used to when it comes to analog gameplay. The other issue with the stick is that, well, there’s only one of them. What that means is that in games like Spider-Man 2, the stick gets used for movement, but if you want to rotate the camera, you have to take your thumb off the stick to use the D-Pad for that purpose, since there’s neither a 2nd set of triggers (for obvious reasons), nor a 2nd analog stick. Again, it’s a challenge, but nothing most gamers won’t grow used to with some experience.

Finally, there’s the overall design of the system. While it’s certainly a slick piece of engineering, there are a few things that aren’t quite as slick as they could be. First, the entire face of the system has a tendency to smudge. Not just the screen, but the area around the buttons, as well. A soft cloth is included to keep the surface dust- and fingerprint-free, but it would be nice if the surface were just a little more resistant to such in the first place.

Also, the games are a little bit awkward to insert and remove. When you’re inserting the games, you have to hold them down while you close the door, because there’s a tendency for the little caddies to pop right back up above the lip of the door when you’re attempting to close it. Also, there’s that whole “screen smudge” thing. It’s difficult to find just the right position to hold the PSP for changing UMDs without smudging the screen.

My final nitpick has to do with the battery and Memory Stick doors. They’re not terribly difficult to open, but it took a good three minutes of wrestling with the door to the Memory Stick slot to get it back in place the way it was supposed to be. The battery door went on somewhat more easily, but was still more of a struggle than it should have been.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve either found a way to snag a PSP, even if by hook or by crook, or you’re strongly considering picking one up. I’ll say this: as with any console, handheld or otherwise, the final thumbs up/thumbs down is going to come down to software. That is, will there be anything compelling to play on the system that you can’t find elsewhere? Lumines, from the developer of< I>Rez, looks poised to do for the PSP what Tetris did for the original Game Boy, and I must admit that I’m fairly excited for an upcoming Nippon Ichi RPG, Makai Wars. The latter is still some distance off, of course, but already those are two excellent-looking games for Sony’s handheld debut. They’ll need more if they hope to dethrone Nintendo, but the slick look and feel of the PSP, especially compared to the slightly more staid DS, is a huge first step.

We’ll have PSP game reviews for you throughout the day today, and all through the weekend, so stay tuned!