Looking to buy a gift for that special gamer in your life? The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are two fantastic portable game systems, but they have such distinctive game libraries and unique hardware capabilities that you absolutely need to know about both systems to make the right purchase decision.

We were tempted to do a comparison story between the two systems shortly after the release of the Sony PSP, but we decided that it would be better to wait and give Sony and Nintendo time to work out the hardware kinks, flesh out the features, and build the all-important game libraries. Systems can't be judged solely on hardware specifications alone--what each system allows you to play and do ultimately determines its usefulness.

The Nintendo DS has been available for more than a year, and the Sony PSP is closing in on its nine-month anniversary. Sony and Nintendo have wasted no time since launching their respective systems, as both portables are significantly more powerful now than they were at initial release.

Release date: 11/21/04
Price: $129 system only, $149 with game bundle
Display: Dual 3-inch TFT LCD with bottom touch screen
Dimensions: 5.85x3.33x1.13 in.
Weight: 8.84 ounces

The Nintendo DS has a foldable clamshell design and features two separate LCD screens (hence the DS--dual screen--name). The top screen is a normal 256x192-pixel display, but the bottom display has touch-screen technology that lets you use a plastic stylus or even your fingertips to control games just by touching the screen. You'll also be able to interact with games using the system's built-in microphone port.

The system has the familiar directional pad and input buttons found on all controllers, but the touch-screen input device and new microphone-control capabilities provide remarkable new gameplay experiences only possible on the DS. One of the most popular DS games, Nintendogs, makes extensive use of both the microphone and the touch screen. The addictive puppy game lets you use the touch screen to pet your dog or toss a ball around, and you can use the microphone to call your dog or teach it commands like "sit".

Nintendo has also recently launched its Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service that lets DS owners play multiplayer games against each other over the Internet. Many DS games already let you play multiplayer games with other DS owners within the same physical proximity, but the new Nintendo Wi-Fi service lets you play against other people online anywhere in the world (but you'll want to stay in the same region to keep latencies low). You can race against friends online in Mario Kart DS or steal all of your friend's fruit in Animal Crossing: Wild World.

The Nintendo DS is Nintendo's most current portable game system. Nintendo released the Game Boy Micro system several months after the DS, but the Micro is merely a miniaturized version of the Game Boy Advance and is only capable of playing GBA games. The DS, on the other hand, can play DS games and has an extra cartridge slot that can support legacy GBA games (in single-player mode). The GBA still has a steady stream of new game releases, but the most highly anticipated games will only be released for the DS.

Release date: 03/24/05
Price: $249 Value Pack, $299 Giga Pack
Display: 4.3-inch TFT LCD
Dimensions: 6.7x2.91x0.91 in.
Weight: 8.36 ounces

While you can't mistake the Nintendo DS for anything except a game system, you could easily confuse the Sony PSP with a flashy new electronics convergence device--in fact, that's exactly what it is. The PSP is primarily a game device, but it's also a video player, digital music player, and now an Internet Web browser thanks to a recent firmware update.

Holding the PSP is like holding a little movie theater in your hands--the screen dominates the entire system, and all the buttons are black or translucent as to not draw attention away from the screen. You'll understand why as soon as you see the system's supersharp 480x272 widescreen display playing a Universal Media Disc movie. The image quality is outstanding, and it's no wonder why many PSP owners spend more time watching videos than playing games on the system.

UMD is a new optical media disc format that Sony uses for the PSP. All PSP games use the new disc format, and you can also get UMD versions of several major movie releases including Clerks and Napoleon Dynamite. The system can also play video and music from Memory Stick media. Just encode your videos in a PSP-compatible format and transfer it to a Memory Stick for PSP playback. Same goes for music, too--just transfer your MP3s onto a Memory Stick and let the PSP handle the rest.

The PSP has a lot of good games, but many are portable versions of popular game franchises present on the major console platforms like Burnout, SOCOM, and Grand Theft Auto. That's not to say the games aren't worth playing, though, as the graphics, sound, and gameplay are all fantastic.