You've got to be taking the wii...

I was really excited about the upcoming Nintendo Revolution console.

But now they have destroyed my enthusiasm in one fell swoop. So what could they have possibly done to ruin this apparently amazine console? I shall tell you...

They've decided to drop the name "Revolution" (this was just a working title apparently).

The official name is the Ninteno Wii. Which, when written down, looks kind of cool. Very short, snappy, graphical, has all sorts of connotations with wi-fi and iPod and similar tech-sounding gadgetry.

But when it's said out loud?

We.

Which, when spoken sounds completely identical to "wee".

I can see it now: "So what console have you got?". Answer: "I've got a wii."

Oh. My. God.

Burning a hole in my pocket?

So I've been away on my holidays over the past week, and I had promised myself that I'd buy a new gadget as a reward for all the long hours I have been doing at work. I had a Sony PSP in mind (see previous posts) but when I was in the shops, I couldn't bring myself to part with over £250 for something that only seems to have a library of "been there seen it done it" games available for it. Yeah, okay, the multimedia aspect is great, but first and foremost it's a games machine, and if there are no games that grab my attention, it'll rapidly get very boring.

After doing some extensive browsing around, I could find far more games that I wanted for the Nintendo DS than for the PSP. Problem is, the DS Lite is just around the corner, and I couldn't bring myself to buy something that would be obsolete almost as soon as I'd bought it.

This led me back to thinking about the Xbox360. A beautiful machine for sure, but the price of that thing is just astronomical. £280 for the console itself, and then £50 per game?! You've got to be kidding me. Particularly when I don't even have a high def television.

So what could I buy? I had promised myself a gadget, but I couldn't find one that I wanted. Or at least, not wanted badly enough. I even started thinking about a satnav for the car, but again, after finding out that the one I wanted was £300, I couldn't justify the expense.

After thinking about it for over a week, I've come to a decision. I'm going to buy some games for my two existing consoles (as there are some great games I've never played which are now available very cheaply) and hang fire until the DS Lite is finally released in the UK. I'm also very taken with the Nintendo Revolution, which looks like it's shaping up to be an awesome console, and may well be more deserving of a place under my telly than an Xbox360. Roll on E3 so we can all see what Nintendo have lined up.

So despite all the marketing hype and the "high definition multimedia wireless next-gen" bells and whistles, I've opted - for once - to keep my cash in my pocket and wait for the thing I actually WANT, rather than just buying what the magazines say I should have.

How's that for progressive thinking?

Oh, how we laughed. Not.

I did a huge search around the web trying to find out some more about this rumoured "PSP 1.5" - the one with dual analogue sticks - in order to ascertain if, and when, it was coming out in the UK. Try as I might, I couldn't find anything about it anywhere. Not even any posts in forums about it. Which was more than a little strange.

So I began to wonder... is this really true? Would Sony really bring out an updated PSP so soon after the original? Why is no-one else reporting the story?

And then I realised. It's April.

I went back into Smiths, and found the magazine where I'd first read the rumour (It's called 'Pure PSP' if you're interested). Sure enough, I hadn't imagined it. There was the article, complete with a photograph of the new model. But then I noticed it. At the bottom of the text, it said "turn to the bottom of page 97 for more information". So I did. And there it was...

"APRIL FOOL! There's no such thing as a Sony PSP 1.5. We made it up, and photoshopped the image."

How stupid did I feel?

But at least that makes the buying decision a little easier, knowing that there's no imminent update to the PSP in the pipeline.

Wait! There's more!

So, following on from my brief and slightly random post about the PSP/Nintendo DS Lite dilemma, I thought I'd follow it up.

Whilst flicking through magazines in Smith's the other lunchtime, I read a report that reckons a new, slightly revised Sony PSP is due out soon. It's almost identical to the existing PSP, but it has a second analogue stick on the right hand side of the unit to match the one on the left. This should make it much easier to play things like first-person shooters on the console, because you'd be able to replicate the control setup of larger consoles. I don't know whether this is true or just a wild rumour, but it would seem to be a bad time to buy a PSP right now just in case a new one really is in the pipeline.

However, the PSP has a lot going for it. There's no doubt that it's a sexy-looking gadget. Its price is a bit steep (over £200 for the Giga Pack) but it does have a host of multimedia capabilities. The idea of watching one of my DVDs on it does have a certain appeal. I've also found out that it plays AAC files, which is what I've encoded my music collection as. The games - which are obviously the important thing - are really pretty good, and I can spot at least five that I'd really like to own.

But then we come onto the DS Lite. It's not available in the UK yet - and there's no release date on the horizon - but from what I've seen of the Japanese units, it's a very desirable little console, and a huge leap forward from the slightly dodgy design of the original DS. It doesn't have the multimedia potential of the PSP (so movies and music are out of the question) but the games are intriguing. Plus the fact that it should - hopefully - only cost about £80 when it hits the UK.

So does that make things any simpler? No, not really. Neither the DS Lite or the "new" PSP have official UK release dates yet, so my plan of getting one over easter seems to have been scuppered. I could go with the ordinary PSP, but I'll be kicking myself if Sony release the new one about 6 weeks later.

This is getting a bit tricky. I can't seem to decide. Any thoughts?

Another Earth-shattering dilemma!

So then... it's a matter of great importance. It's up there with such existential old chestnuts as "Is there life after death?", "Why am I here?" and "Where do all the odd socks go?".

So the question is... Should I get a Sony PSP or a Nintendo DS Lite? Or perhaps neither?

It's got me stumped for sure. There is no easy answer. This may take some time...