The highly reputable research company, Nielsen, did a big study in 2009 looking at how teens use media. And it was a real “reality check” as they found that most of the beliefs out there are actually wrong!

For example, teens watch more TV now than ever (and have not abandoned it for the internet, mobiles or game platforms!). In contrast, they watch LESS online videos than adults do (actually spend a whopping 35% LESS time doing that than 25-34 year olds, for example).

But it is the findings regarding game play that the Bitfood team were wanting to check out. Nielsen found, for example, that:

* Teens play video games, but are as excited about play-along music games and car-racing games as they are about violent ones: Just two of their top five most-anticipated games since 2005 are rated “Mature.”

* Video consumption, led by TV viewing, is the centerpiece of teen media consumption.

Console gaming comes in third “in a day in the life of” the average teenager in the US. These are averages, tho, and we are betting that game players actually spend more time using their consoles than these figures would suggest - but averaged out over all teens that figure goes down a lot.

* The myth is that teen gamers spend all their time playing “Mature” shooter games But in reality just two of the top five “most anticipated” games among teens since 2005 were rated Mature (Halo 3, and Grand Theft Auto IV)

* Teens account for just 23% of the console audience and less than 10% of PC game minutes.

* 83% of teens have at least one console in their home.

What do ya think? Does this describe teen use as you see it? We want to hear your view on these results (For example, the last 12 months has seen a massive increase in the involvement of females in the gaming world - Nielsen are suggesting the Wii has played a big role in broadening the population of those playing games. But we suspect that the increasing use of mobile game platforms in education has had a big impact as well)

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If you have not yet got Need For Speed Undercover or Need For Speed Shift, you might like to try them out on the free demos that EA has provided. Now neither demo is available for play on the PSP, unfortunately, but you can still get a sense of the game and so decide whether tis the game for you.

Need For Speed Undercover can be played on a neat free demo player that EA has provided for us to download and use on our PC. This provides a demo screen that is a bit smaller than the PSP screen, but you will get the gist:

The free demo for Need For Speed SHIFT, can be played on our PCs as well - but in full screen mode. Still, again you will get a feel for the game and see whether you want to get the PSP version.

As the Bitfood team has said in many previous posts - we would like to see a lot more demos available for the PSP games.

Currently there is only one PSP game available as a demo in Playstation store (Sony should really take a leaf out of Apple’s marketing approach where literally hundred’s of “lite” - ie demo - iPhone games are available for free). Even as we wrote this post several free demo were dropped from the Playstation store!  The EA free game demo - Army of Two: The 40th Day - is actually still listed at the EA site as available at the Playstation store!

The fact is Sony has just not discovered the value of providing free demos - and their dropping sales show that its just a dumb way to go!

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What with the massive drop-off in the sale of PSP game hardware still continuing, and the massive pressure being put on the traditional mobile game platforms by the explosion of free and cheap games on the iPhone, its great to see that Sony is not giving up without a fight!

And in one exciting new direction they are clearly thinking outside the box…er PSP - literally!! Its early days yet, but the release last year of Invizimals and the release last week of Second Sight, signal perhaps, that Sony is prepared to take the PSP into the 21st century - and to a place that iPhones cannot go?

Both Invizimals and Second Sight make use of the PSP Cam to add an extra dimension to the game or learning experience. The camera is used to input extra information to the PSP which then is used to either add extra characters to the game or generate extra video or 3D experiences for students.

Now whilst neither the game nor the edu-tool are particularly exciting for most PSP gamers (and in fact are not even available for PSP gamers in the USA) they may signal new directions for PSP games.

Adding credibility to this observation is the patent filed by Sony where the PSP is used to operate a remote car using a camera on the car - which, like the above two “games” then inputs that info to the PSP. In the patent, apparently, it actually describes the purpose as:

a user may control the car… so as to spy on their friends… then upload the stored video images to a website.”

The point is that Sony is clearly experimenting with ways to take our gaming experiences interactive with the real world. And once they take this step - the opportunities for developing dramatic new game experiences are endless.

In other words we think (hope?) that these recent moves from Sony signal that completely new game experiences are about to be developed.

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The Bitfood team have researched and written on this topic before. In fact we did several posts on the need for Sony to take a new look at the changes taking place in the “typical” gamer profile. One of these changes is the % of females playing games -  which has risen massively (if you are interested, the most up-to-date study can be found here) In fact, over 50% of PSP owners are female!

We began to push for new games to suit these new demographics early in 2009. But has Sony been listening?

To answer this, we decided to have a look at the games due for release over the next few months. ING usually have a good (but not, usually, complete)  list of upcoming PSP games. Their list shows some 40 games are due out over the next 6 months. So we decided to put together a quiz based on their list to see what you have the hots for! Your answers will show us whether Sony (or other game developers) have yet noticed that their buyer market has significantly changed!

Girls answer this quiz:

Guys answer this quiz:

Taking a look through the list, we suspect that the game developers are still behind the times and are ignoringboth the growing female population of players AND the fact that a lot of older players have joined the ranks of PSP gamers!

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It might be tempting to think that PSP games are stolen because such a big percentage of PSP game players are young. And generally, the younger the person, the less $$ they have to spend - so it could be argued that there would be a greater temptation to steal the wanted games.

But not so - firstly - the average age of (PSP?)  gamers is 30 (you can read more surprising gamer facts here). Secondly, it is clear that game theft is not limited to the PSP. Even iPhone owners are guilty of stealing games made for the iPhone. They also steal Apps by the thousand at a time (thieves develop packs of 1000 iPhone games/apps for free download). When you consider that there are hundreds of free iPhone games and Apps available for download from the iTunes store, and that those Apps that do have a price tag mostly sell for less than three bucks, you gotta conclude that - “its not about the money”!

Anyway, the Bitfood team decided to find out which PSP games are currently the most popular to steal. Now our research is not gonna include the games that are stolen and included as part of their package by “backyard” PSP modders - basically because, while we know they are out there by the hundreds, we can’t survey them to find out what stolen games they are using. What we did was check out the most popular sites for distributing these stolen games. The thirteen most popular PSP games currently being stolen are:

1) Tekken 6
2) Assassins Creed Bloodlines
3) Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
4) Little Big Planet.
5) James Cameron Avatar The Game
6) Need for Speed
7) Gran Turismo Ed Col
Formula1 2009
9) Bleach Soul Carnival 2
10) Metal Slug XX
11) WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2010
12) Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron
13) Jak and Daxter La Frontera Perdida

This list does not include the  packs of games like “PSP 145 Iso Games” which has 145 - mostly old, mostly less popular - games.

We have not included any links to sites that allow for the downloading of these stolen games. Mostly because we want to see more great PSP games being developed fast! The more games are stolen, the less developers are interested in putting their $$ into developing new games! More on this in our next post!

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Check out this great demo of the just released game, LBP PSP! The game has been nervously anticipated by many - will it measure up to the PS3 version of the game - or be yet another big disappointment?
Well, before we make any further comments, just take a look at the demo:

The Bitfood team are actually quite excited by the game and we are not alone. That hard to please guy over at Sarcastic gamer, for example, also gives it a rave review:

but when I turned the game on, something magical happened.  I was looking at LittleBigPlanet.  I was looking at it on my PSP.  I mean it WAS the game.

As always, a site has been set up for the game with free avatars, wallpapers, and even  images and videos to use on the websites Sony just know you all will want to set up and devote solely to the game!!

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* Been wanting to unlock the Precursor Orb secrets for the  latest PSP game in the Jak and Daxter series? Just out  - you can now get the cheats guide for this game.

*  Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron on PSP Cheats and Hints

* Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days (PSP) Cheats & Unlockables  (pretty good as the game is yet to be released!)

* Final Fantasy Tactics: War of Lions  – PSP Cheats plus, on the same site, the recently published cheats for Daxter

* Not quite so “hot” but still worth getting are the GTA  Chinatown Wars cheats for psp:

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Do you like to watch movies on your PSP? Well, then you are likely to be interested in Vuze - a free media player for high-res digital videos. Vuze has a great new feature called Devices which converts all your downloads to play on PSP. According to Vuse, they have made the conversion system smart so that we don’t have to be.

The simple two-step process as outlined on Vuse and shown below.

Its easy to get movies or videos onto your PSP First, download the Vuze software (its free). Then PSP will appear in the Sidebar under Devices the first time you connect your PSP to your computer (make sure Vuze is open). All you have to do then is to drag-and-drop movie or video files from your Vuze library to the PSP in the Sidebar. This will convert the movie/video files to to a format that the PSP can play. Once the conversion has been done, Vuze will automatically transferr the new file to the PSP. You will find the converted movie files listed under ‘Videos’.

Try it out - its free! You can download Vuze 4.3 here and/or get the Vuze Toolbar here.

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Ghostbusters are giving away a Ghostbusters the Video Game for PSP every day this month!

PRIZES: Each Prize consists of one (1) Ghostbusters PSP video game. The approximate retail value of each prize is $29.99.

Ya do have to provide your contact details, but simple enough! Not sure ya want the game? Check it out:

Its already been given an 8/10 rating by IGN - along with the following overview:

With Manhattain newly overrun by ghosts and other supernatural creatures, it’s up to you to take on the role of a new recruit joining the original, famous Ghostbusters team…..

The contest ends on the last day of November but, sadly, it is only open to US residents (check the rules)

Also check out our last post if ya also wanna win a PSP

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The great thing about Twitter is that the celebs love it! And so do all sorts of people who run sites and want us to visit them! And to create some buzz and to motivate us to visit them they offer cool prizes if we tweet about them.  Here is a coupla  Twitter contests that are offering a PSP, PSP games or both as prizes in return for a few seconds of our time spent tweeting about them (copy-past-click and done!)

Thatgirssite is giving away a new PSP3000 plus the for code to download (full game)  Mercury Meltdown to play on their new system. All you have to do is either:

1)  Twitter

“RT for a chance to win a PSP 3000 and Mercury Meltdown! http://thatgirlssite.com/?p=4202 @thatgirlssite “ OR

2) Twitter

RT for a chance to win a PSP 3000 and Mercury Meltdown! http://thatgirlssite.com/?p=4202 @Videogamegirl

Contest ends 31 October

The second contest is a bit different (well, OK, a LOT different). Hoping to hook into both our passion for PSPs,  and into the whole viral network of Youtube, Twitter etc, theiPodKid is offering us the chance to win a PSP Rockband bundle and Killzone Liberation game for PSP. All we have to do is

1) subscibe to his YouTube channel (one entry to win),

2) add comments below the video “Sony PSP Bundle Giveaway” (each comment = 1 entry)

3) help get friends to view the video - as the winner is chosen after the video gets 100, 000 views. Its currently up to  41,048 views!! This is where twitter comes in because all you have to do is tweet a message like:

win a PSP Rock Band Bundle at http://tinyurl.com/ygpsv2t

Contest ends when there are 100,000 views of the youtube video.

By spreading the word and getting your friends to watch the video you move the win date closer and closer and get a hold of thet new PSp just that much sooner..

So now you know two ways to use twitter to get a free PSP - good luck! And as always - share this info with your friends.

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