I’ve resisted buying games for my PSP for quite a while now, as I’m trying to ensure that the games I do have actually get played rather than ignored. This principle seems to work quite well, I’ve played Wipeout Pure and World Tour Soccer far more than I would have done if I had gone out and bought Need For Speed: Most Wanted or Grand Theft Auto as soon as they became available.

It may be my age that has resulted in me avoiding the game shops, as at one time (in my youth!) collecting and playing as many games as possible was the main goal of any gamer. Nowadays however, my approach to gaming is that I want to get some quality playtime out of each game before moving onto the next one. This means that I don’t buy as many PSP games as I would have done maybe ten years ago, but also that I get my moneys worth out of each game.

The biggest problem with this approach is that I’m perhaps missing out on playing some really good game titles, instead playing mediocre games that should have been traded in months ago. Hopefully though, this measured approach to gaming will ensure that not only do I stop wasting money on games I’ll never play, but that when I come to buy a new game, the second hand market will be better and I can get my ‘new’ game at a reduced price by getting it on the second hand games market.

As a side-note, its also much easier now to access the suitability of a PSP game before buying it, as the internet provides a huge amount of resources for PSP game reviews. Whereas once it used to be magazine reviews (with their inherent bias towards advertisors) that used to guide the game buyer, now we can look to user reviews to see if a game will be good or not.