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Playstation Portable

PSP Store Sony confirmed today that the full PlayStation Store will be accessible directly through the PSP starting October 15th. Soon! [Kotaku]

hardcore gaming

Playing Your PSP at Work Is a Bad Idea, Especially When You Drive a City Bus

A bus driver in Honolulu, Hawaii, was suspended without pay recently after he was discovered playing video games while driving. Photos taken by a concerned passenger caught him red-handed with his PSP, and she complained that he would play at stoplights and "with two hands… at times, while he was driving in traffic." As baffling as all this is, I am even more surprised that he wasn't fired on the spot. And why didn't anyone speak up with a "hey dumbass, keep your eyes on the road before you kill us all?" [KITV via Kotaku]

playstation portable

Third Parties Are Ditching the PSP

The sad thing about the PSP is that it's a solid piece of hardware that people, mostly in Japan, are buying, but in humorless irony, third parties are refusing to support the platform. In this graph by famed gaming magazine EDGE, you see in hard numbers that there are almost no more PSP games coming out this year than the year of its launch. In fact, game releases peaked for the system way back in 2006. And if the downward trend continues, 2009 could be plain sad. More »

psp 3000

PSP 3000 Actually Has Same Battery Life as the Current PSP

Originally, it was believed that the battery life of the PSP 3000 would be worse than the original, but Gamespot has learned from Sony that it will actually be the same (about 4 to 6 hours for games and about 4 to 5 hours for UMD videos). While the new screen does require more power, Sony has compensated by reducing the power draw of other components. The weird thing here is that Sony originally suggested that re-releasing the discontinued PSP extended battery pack was the solution. Is there some confusion here or did they just reverse ground? [Gamespot via Playstation Blog]

psp

PSP 3000 To Have Worse Battery Life, But Sony Takes Note

The PSP 3000 will have a brighter LCD with a wider color gamut and 5 times the contrast ratio of the PSP 2000. From the shots we've seen, it blows the old screen away—and that screen was already pretty decent. There is, of course, a catch. And that catch is that the PSP will lose somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes of battery life compared to the old PSP, putting its playtime to 3 1/2 to 4 hours. But to compensate, Sony will be rereleasing the just-discontinued PSP extended battery to the market which should still provide 8-10 hours of play. UPDATE: Sony has done an abrupt about-face on the battery issue. [Gamespot via Maxconsole]

sony

Stella Artois PSP Rekindles Our Interest in Two Unlike Fads

The combination isn't exactly the most obvious, but hey, I'm a gamer, and hey, I like paying $5 a glass for a pretentious beer that tastes identical to Budweiser. The Stella Artois PSP was manufactured in a limited edition for the Fosters employees who'd be brewing the "import" in Australia for Australia—part of the official "please don't spit in our delicate European beer" bonus. [Lowe Rivet via Kotaku]

psp

PSP 3000 Photos Emerge: New Bright Screen is New, Bright

The updated PSP 3000 didn't seem all that jaw-dropping, save for talk of its dramatically improved screen: But now pics of the screen in action have surfaced, and boy oh boy, it's dramatically improved alright. Check out that contrast in the pic, comparing it to the PSP Lite: Game playing in brightly-lit situations looks like it won't be a problem with the new machine. In other pics you can see the redesign has other minor changes, like a slightly more curved profile at the edges near the control pads... whether this makes for more comfortable handling will have to wait for a hands-on review. [Famitsu via Kotaku]

psp-3000

Sony Makes PSP-3000 Official

We knew the PSP-3000 was on the way, but now Sony has made it official. We don't have a full spec sheet yet, but the big two updates are going to be a new, brighter screen ("highest-level contrast ratio, response time, and wider color gamut possible on a portable LCD screen" Sony claims) and an integrated microphone (making those impromptu Skype chats a whole lot more practical). No word on US release yet, but the PSP-3000 will be available in Europe on October 15th for €199. Hopefully we'll have a better picture for you soon, but it looks a lot like the existing PSPs. UPDATE: It's coming to the US on Oct 14, and it will hit with a new pack, click through for the update: [Kotaku] More »

gaming

Sony Plans 10-Year Shelf Life For Current Generation PSP

We were semi-surprised that the PSP hardware update contained so few external changes, but now that we've seen Sony's plan for the system, it all makes sense. Their ten year shelf-life plan for the PS2 and PS3 apparently also applies to the PSP platform, which according to them, "[does] not have a planned obsolescence strategy." Good news for current PSP owners since they won't have to upgrade their units for another three to four years at least. [Gama Sutra via Kotaku]

psp

FCC Confirms PSP Redesign Number 3001 With Few Visible Improvements

The FCC has come through again, giving up testing info on Sony's upcoming PSP-3001 redesign. It's still the same generation PSP and still has most of the same parts (802.11b Wi-Fi) and still plays the same games, so we're guessing most of the changes will be internal and focused on lowering costs and making the thing harder to hack. Why do we think that? Because that's exactly what Jack Tretton of SCEA said in the roundtable at E3, that Sony's working on securing the platform from piracy. We'll just have to wait and see whether it's worth upgrading to this version if you've already got a PSP. [FCC]