It’s pink. It’s tiny. It has a webcam and a five-hour battery. Just tell me, who wouldn’t want a pink mbook? No one, that’s who. → Read More
Lending credence to the rumor that Sony is doing away with the UMD drive on the next PSP comes word, beit rumor, from Ars that Patapon 2 will only be released digitally next month. You can, however, pick up physical product at your local game shop, though. Or so says Ars’s mole. In total, there are three ways of getting Patapon 2 for your PSP. → Read More
Earthworm Jim and MDK creator Dave Perry claimed the other day that the PSP2—yes, it’s in development—will not have a UMD drive. That’s good news, seeing as though UMD is terribly slow; eliminating it from any future PSP design would both 1) cut costs and 2) shrink the device’s footprint by a not-insignificant amount. And while Sony may deny that any such redesign is in the works, Perry insists that’s he’s right. → Read More
There’s not a lot of content in this video of PSP firmware v5.0 but you can expect to see the PSN store, a new RSS reader, and a snapshot tool for taking screenshots of games. Pretty exciting, right? More importantly, a firmware upgrade will ensure that PSP hackers will have to spend a few minutes hacking this version of the software and then go back to drinking Mountain Dew and eating Gamer Grub. Is the PSP even relevant anymore? UMD is pretty much a dead-end for media and the games have been bad to abysmal so far – even God of War wasn’t that hot. Could the DSi pound the final nail in the PSP coffin? → Read More
UMD has been a thorn in Sony’s side since it was introduced as an ill-fated storage format for the popular PSP almost two years ago. Sony has had a string of proprietary format failures, and has now faded into relative obscurity. That does not mean that movies for the PSP is a dead idea, though. Reports indicate that Sony is developing a movie download store of its own, much like that offered by Apple via its iTunes application. The movies could be stored on Memory Sticks (again, a proprietary format, though one far cheaper, more extensible, and larger user base than UMD), with up to ten titles of a 4GB card. This puts one of the larger movie studios in position to compete head-to-head with Apple, though the real question remains: does Sony really want to put all of its motion picture eggs into one PSP basket? Or will it compliment, not compete against, iTunes and iPod? Sony to enter video download market [Financial Times] → Read More
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