Sorry about this but... Your work fellow does not know what he is talking about. There will be absolutely no difference in the graphics capabilities of the machines. Also, with regards to the software, I think what he is talking about is that way back when the PSP was first released you could get one with the 1.0 firmware version on it but the US version came with 1.5. The difference back then was that you could do homebrew on a 1.0 firmware but not on a 1.5. Well, much time has past and Sony keeps trying to block the homebrew devs, but now you can do homebrew stuff on firmwares up to 2.7 (still better on a 1.5 though) but chances are if you are buying a new one it will come with at least version 2.8 on it. This does not mean you won't be able to do homebrew on firmwares all the way up to 3.01 in the very near future. As a matter of fact, it usually does not take the hackers and devs long to crack the new firmwares Sony releases. On 3.0 and 3.01 it kinda looks like Sony might be relaxing a bit but only time will tell.
Now on to a few pros and cons of PSP...
It can do a ton of stuff. Games, movies/videos, music, web browsing, RSS feed reader, GPS, video chat, etc...I love mine and never go on a road trip without it. It has also served me well on the long nights spent in the ER (a ten year old and a one year old and a paraniod wife
). It has a bunch of games available in just about every genre you could want. There are many more good things that can be said about it but lets move on.
Problems with it that are of concern:
It is getting it's ass kicked in sales by the DS. There is a reason for this in my eyes though. To me, the DS seems to be geared towards kids and the PSP to a more adult consumer (price alone suggests this). If your product is aimed at kids then of course you are going sell more toys.
Hollywierd seems to be shunning the UMD for movies and it's hard to find good/new movies to play on your little toy. A UMD movie will sometimes cost you more than the DVD version and the UMD does not have the image quality or goodies that the DVD will have. Not much of a problem for me though as I have never purchased a UMD movie. Instead, I get the DVD and rip it to a format the PSP can play and save it to a memory stick.
About homebrew...
Homebrew is stuff folks out there have done that run on your PSP if you have the correct firmware version. Most of it consists of little crappy games and 'proof of concept' stuff. There are some nice things out there though (better text entry, better RSS readers, a few addictive games, new "shells" and some other things). I've never worried to much about homebrew but you will have to make your own decision on it and decide if it's worth locating one with an old firmware or just wait until the hacks and devs whip the newer firmwares into line.
One last thing... Since you are thinking about buying one, look into the DS also and compare what each can do and what games are available and then decide for yourself which is right for you.
Hope some of this helped. Good luck.
-blert
