Hacking the PSP Blog

Sony to Include Portable Movie Files on Blu-Ray DVDs

Wow. In a move that runs against what has always seemed to be a deep-seeded paranoia about piracy, Sony told Bloomberg today that they plan to start including portable files on Blu-ray disc to let users copy movies to laptops and other portable electronics.

Sony Pictures Entertainment will include portable files on Blu-Ray DVDs that can be transferred without a download, David Bishop, head of Sony's home entertainment unit, said in an interview this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Sony may add the feature this year, Bishop said. "It's not currently part of anything on our current release schedule, but we'll probably roll it out sometime this year," Bishop said on Jan. 8.

Thank you Sony, thank you very much. Please, please, please, don't forget your poor, lost PSP when you do that. Can you imagine buying a Blu-ray DVD that includes a free PSP version of the film? HOOOOOT!

Brian Crecente
January 10, 2007

Source: Kotaku

NPD: Game industry reaches $12.5 billion in '06

With the shift to the new generation of consoles finally complete, there's little left to discuss about the transitional year aside from how well the industry weathered it. The industry-tracking NPD Group today released its US retail gaming sales results for December and for the entirety of 2006, and the figures showed a record sales year and growth almost across the board.

When hardware, software, and accessories sales are combined, the total US gaming market for the year amounted to $12.5 billion, a 19 percent jump over 2005's $10.5 billion, which was the previous highest grossing year in US gaming. December alone saw the industry bring in $3.7 billion, 27.8 percent more than the $2.9 billion it brought in for December 2005. The figures did not include sales of PC games, PC game subscriptions, or downloaded content.

Last month, retailers racked up $1.7 billion in game sales, a 5.4 percent increase over December 2005. While sales of games for the recently released Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 3 added to the tally, console software sales overall were virtually unchanged, up only about .5 percent. However, last month's portable game sales showed significantly more growth over December 2005, as they cumulatively jumped 18.8 percent to $521.6 million.

The numbers were reversed on the hardware side of the equation. While portable systems showed the strongest growth as far as software went, sales of the hardware were actually down for the month, slipping 5.7 percent from the year before to $488.7 million. It was the Wii and PS3 driving hardware growth last month, as December's $1.1 billion take for console hardware was double December 2005's tally and then some, up 131.2 percent from the year before. Combining the portable and console markets, hardware sales for the month were up 59.2 percent to $1.6 billion.

As for which piece of hardware proved to be the most popular for the month, the Nintendo DS led all systems with 1.6 million units sold, trailed by the PlayStation 2 (1.4 million units sold) and the Xbox 360 (1.1 million units sold).

Read the full article here...

Brendan Sinclair
January 11, 2007

Source: Gamespot

Free demo disks at PlayStation LockerRoom Challenge Tour

If you live anywhere near the PlayStation LockerRoom Challenge Tour (LRCT) stops, then come out and play. There's PS3, PS2, PSP, SingStar, and big-screen TV fun. And there's some free goodies.

If you go to PlayStation.com, you can download and print a pass. Take the pass to any official LRCT event and you will get a FREE DEMO DISK. This offer expires January 28 or while supplies last. Demo selection is limited only to whatever is available when you redeem your pass. So we guess it pays to be early and stay until the end.

Just like before, the LRCT event happens Friday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., and then Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and then Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Again, the free demo disk offer expires January 28 or while supplies last. But the PLCT goes on:

• Jan 12-14: Wal-Mart, 710 Dennery Road, San Diego, CA 92154
• Jan 19-21: Wal-Mart, 12701 Towne Center Dr., Cerritos, CA 90703
• Jan 26-28: Wal-Mart, 2770 Carson Street, Lakewood, CA 90712
• Feb 2-4: Wal-Mart, 5200 So. Fort Apache Road, Las Vegas (Sw2), NV 89148

Check out the details here...

Source: PSPUpdates

No borders, even on a PSP, DS, and Wii: WordPress plugins

Okay, so people are going gaga over Wii internet surfing. It's a little more button-mashing tedious as compared to the PSP and DS's respective Internet browsing capabilities, but it can be done.

WordPress, which is just one of the many blogging services offered on the Web, is one of those many sites visited around the world on a regular basis. Okay, maybe not for those too busy playing games right now on any of the three mentioned consoles, but for inveterate readers and writers (and those definitely are good skills to have), this might prove useful.

So, put those two together, and David Harper and his Winksite team, who's offered the WordPress Wii plugin for the socially-networked Wii owner, now provides the same benefits to PSP and DS owners. These plugins help to streamline your portable WordPress reading experience - because you really, really have to know what's up with (insert favorite WordPress blogger)'s life in between bouts of PSP or DS games. Instructions are included for each pack, including the one for the Wii which is included here, so it's only a matter of reading a few Readmes.

Read the full text here...

Source: PSPUpdates & David Harper's blog