Hacking the PSP Blog

Hey kids, get your PSP back from your teachers! It's an "educational tool" !!!

Sony Japan today announced a strange little PSP bundle, squarely aimed at the kids educational aids market, in an attempt to flog a few more units of its flagging handheld.

Thanks to the tip off from our colleagues over at DigitalWorldTokyo.com for letting us know about
the O-benkyo ('Study') Pack, which includes a white PSP and the usual Value Pack gear (32MB Memory Stick, remote etc) plus the educational UMD title Doko demo isshyo let’s gakko, which roughly translates as 'The Let’s Study Together, Wherever School.'

Still wavering? Perhaps the deal clincher will be the included branded PSP pouch and Biro. ¥28,140 from June 15, if you must know.

'The Let’s Study Together, Wherever School' has to be the best ever name for an edutainment title. If you know of any better, then let us know in the forum below.

We might try to persuade our mums to buy us a white PSP for its educational value now. Although there are two major hurdles to this cunning plan. Firstly, our mums are not Japanese. Secondly, we left school in the 1980s. Bah! Foiled!

(source: DigitalWorldTokyo.com via Dokodemoissyo.com)

Source: Spong

Sony extends the selection of PSP storage with 4GB Pro Duo cards

While the storage solutions for the PSP were slim at launch, with Pro Duo cards being both small and expensive, we're starting to see a whole new world of storage for the system. Prices dropped on the existing cards, while we also started hearing rumors of up to 2GB of storage on a single Pro DUO. Datel also came out with their own 4GB add-on storage solution.  

EBGames now has the listing for a 4GB Pro DUO up on their website, with a June 1 release date that's right around the corner. Expect to pay all for those music and video files though, as the card will retail for about US$240. The important thing is the higher-capacity cards always push down the prices of the lower capacity cards. This means that the 2GB cards will become more affordable, and we already know that we'll soon see an 8GB card.

The good news is that with the US$200 system that doesn't come with the paltry 32MB card, 4GB of storage with a new system can be yours for about US$440. That's not a bad price for a system that can do everything the PSP can. You get a good gaming system, a nice portable music player, and the ability to rip your own video content to watch on the go. That screen also beats almost every other portable on the market in terms of video playback.

As memory gets cheaper the PSP just gets more attractice and more suitable as a portable media viewer. Here's to dropping prices and bigger capacity!  

Source: Opposable Thumbs

Lumines set to explode with new games for the 360, PSP, and mobile phones

If you're a Lumines fan it's a very good time to own multiple consoles. Not only is Lumines Live set to hit the Xbox 360 later this year with customizable music and skins, but Lumines 2 is also looking good on the PSP. Not enough? There are currently 700 versions of Lumines Mobile being developed to fit almost every cellphone on the planet. 

I'm most excited about Lumines Live; the ability to play Lumines in high-definition on the big screen is a huge draw, as is the ability to change how the game looks and sounds with new skins and music. This is an awesome grab for the LIVE Arcade service, as we're always happy to see more Lumines out in the wild. Now people without PSPs will be able to see what we've all been raving about. 

The other thing that grabbed us about the interview Tetsuya Mizuguchi gave to Eurogamer was the fact he seemed to be very interested in revisting Rez and Space Channel 5 in the future. Rez was an underrated game, and while it has a strong following online very few people have actually played it. Combine that with the fact that the mixture of shooting and music action would make for the perfect Wii game, and we have some items to base wild speculation on. Dare we dream?  

Source: Opposable Thumbs

PSP E-Distribution and Memory-Stick Based Games coming soon?

This quote apparently from IGN:

Sony's Ken Kutaragi continues to drop PlayStation Portable news during the company's PlayStation Business Briefing 2006 as he's just announced that the PSP will see "E-Distrubution" features added sometime in the future.

Users will be able to boot software directly from their Memory Stick, all official-like this time around (you know what I mean). The first major announcement for use of this will be a series of PSOne games - yes, you will be able to download classic PlayStation titles and play them on your PSP.

Source: NeoSeeker

Hands On: Micro Machines V4 for PSP

Anybody remember Micro Machines? Those cool little cars with the fast-talkin' guy on the tube all the time? Well, a game based on the popular mini-cars is coming for the PSP... GameSpot has the details from E3! -Auri

Codemasters has wrestled the Micro Machines licence back from Hasbro, and has called on Mashed developer Supersonic to handle the update. Micro Machines V4 is scheduled for a June release across PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, with PC and DS versions to follow before September. We were lucky enough to get a hands-on with the PSP version at this year's E3.

In Micro Machines V4, toy vehicles are raced around household courses such as bathtubs, kitchen tables, and a garden pond. The emphasis is on pick-up-and-play arcade racing, and you beat your opponents by knocking them off-course or using weapons to destroy them. The PSP version is exactly the same as the PS2 version, with more than 50 tracks, 25 weapons/power-ups, and 700 vehicles. Races can accommodate up to four people, with artificial intelligence opponents in single-player mode or real players in wireless multiplayer modes.

The game itself is incredibly simple to play, with the X button accelerating and the left/right controls adjusting the car's direction. The idea is to get as far ahead of your opponent as possible, until the players closest to the edge of the screen are disqualified. You can also use weapons to destroy or slow down your opponents, or power-ups to improve the health of your vehicle. Some of the weapons are similar to the ones we played with in Mashed, including explosive barrels that can be tossed from the back of the car. When vehicles take damage they slow down, so crafty players will be able to injure their opponent and then burn ahead with ease.

Read the entire article here...