It becomes clear that a video game console is dying when the game developers stop making games for it. Looking at the list for upcoming games for the Sony PSP, I’m inclined to think that the PSP is not long for this life. For the week of April 13, no new PSP games will be released in North America or Japan, and just one new game is being released in Europe (UEFA Euro 2008). Last week saw the release just one game in North America, and it was World Championship Cards, not exactly the title that’s going to set the world on fire. No worries though, as Europe got Chessmaster PSP, finally bringing the much sought-after game of chess to the handheld.
Worldwide PSP releases for the week of Apr. 13 - PSP Fanboy
Sony will finally allow developers to use the full speed of the PSP’s CPU, which could bring a significant performance boost to future games. The CPU has a full potential of 333MHz, but developers were only allowed to run games at 266MHz. Games running at the faster speed will have better framerates, but battery life will be lower. Hackers have already discovered how to unleash the full CPU, but it had little effect on performance, as only homebrew games could take advantage of the speed.
Sony Confirms Full PSP CPU Speed (Updated) - Shacknews
Technorati Tags: psp, sony, firmware
Skype, the popular VoIP app, could be coming to the Sony PSP. A reference to Skype can be found by decrypting the latest firmware (3.10). This could be an indication that it is a current project for Sony.
It seems to me that the PSP has lost nearly all of its buzz, and it’s a real shame. This handheld is truly a world-beater, with more functionality than anything that small I’ve ever seen. It can even play emulated old Playstation games and converted DVD movies. Now it could have a phone service. That’s pretty incredible for a system nobody seems to care about anymore.
Technorati Tags: sony, psp, skype, firmware
Bill Gates has come out and claimed what many PS3 are fearing: the PS3 will never have a graphics advantage over the Xbox 360. He claims that developers have had a one year head start making games for the Xbox 360, and they will never be able to catch up with the PS3 because the latter system is too hard to program for.
Gates also takes a cheap but truthful shot at the PS3 by pointing out that after Sony worked on the Cell processor for over a year, they threw in a Nvidia chip at the last second, not giving anyone a chance to learn how to optimize the new platform format.
Will Gates be right about this one, or will it turn into another one of his “nobody will need more than half a MB of memory” moments?
Technorati Tags: ps3, xbox360, microsoft
People may think that Sony has given up on the PSP, but there are still many reasons to believe 2007 will be a great year for the groundbreaking handheld. Price drops, new video download services, Gran Turismo Mobile, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and Animal Crossing are just a few of the reasons why this could be a breakout year for a system that is 2 years old and is losing support from its manufacturer.
Sony has already found that their PS3 is not going to be what they expected. They are losing money on every sale of the system, and Nintendo is stealing their thunder with some of the most creative games of the past decade. Sony may find that better profits can be made by refocusing on the PSP and the fact that it can interact with the PS3 in many ways. Nintendo has had trouble getting consumers to use their handhelds with their full-size consoles, but their recent handhelds have also sucked. The PSP has the bigger screen and slick resolution that games want in a handheld. It’s really the only handheld I’ve ever played that actually makes games look like their larger counterparts. That’s mainly due to the fact that the resolution can be scaled down without anyone noticing because the screen is only a few inches.
With comparable graphics, I think we may see more PSP games tied-in with their PS3 counterparts. Customers will have to buy both games in order to complete the full story. This works especially well with story-based franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy, but it can also be successful with games that have no story buy character-building elements, such as Gran Turismo (yes, I realize you aren’t really a named character in the game, but you do build up a garage full of nice cars and have to keep racing to get money to buy better cars). Imagine cars in Gran Turismo Online that can only be unlocked by winning races in Gran Turismo Mobile. The customer will have to spend nearly $100 to buy both games, and the margins on each sale are huge. That’s the kind of business model Sony should be focusing on right now.
Technorati Tags: psp, sony, 2007
Some genius has developed a firmware hack that allows PS1 games to be played via a PSP. Obviously the discs themselves are not used in the PSP, but I assume this allows use of ripped games. They’ll be much more on this later, after the developer releases the script that needs to be run to change the PSP firmware. Here’s a video of the thing in action:
Technorati Tags: psp, sony, 3.02, oe-b
The PSP is getting some improvements, so don’t go out and buy the old style. The updated models will have a choice of either a hard disk drive (with a lot of storage space) or a non-hard disk drive with a large amount of flash memory. They will retail for $199 and less than $199 (I’m a fantastic investigative journalist, aren’t I?), respectively.
Sales of the Sony PSP portable gaming console are expected to slow to a trickle this holiday season, as gamers spend their money on new consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and Xbox 360.
In addition, reports have leaked that reveal Sony’s plan to release a PSP 2 in Q2 of 2007. The next PSP will be more like a second generation PSP, ala the iPod, and not a new system entirely. Still, expect to see many gamers wait a few months so they’ll be able to buy the best portable gaming system, with the newest feature.
Technorati Tags: psp, sony, sales
The Sony PSP is without a doubt the greatest handheld video game system ever made. Not only is it powerful from a computer graphics processing perspective, but it also has a huge screen and some great games.
Perhaps my favorite feature of the PSP is one that Sony never intended for us to have. With the right tools (and I’m talking mostly about software tools, so put your wrench down) the PSP is very “hackable”. You can put an emulator on it and play games from old systems like Super Nintendo or Atari.
For some strange reason, video game companies hate it when a bunch of young punks makes their old video games popular again. The corporations that run these companies are guided by lawyers who tell them it’s better to sue than to let the kids have their fun and build free brand recognition.
Come to this blog for any news relating to the Sony PSP, whether or not Sony approves or not. I am not an employee of Sony or any other video game company, and until I am I will be here to tell you about the latest games and the latest hacks that will allow you to do things like run Linux (that’s a type of operating system, for those not in the know) or use your PSP as a navigational tool. Who knows, with the computing power of this handheld device, the possibilities are endless.
- April 2008 (1)
- June 2007 (1)
- February 2007 (1)
- January 2007 (1)
- December 2006 (2)
- October 2006 (1)
- September 2006 (2)
