Hacking the PSP Blog

4GB Lexar Memory Stick PRO Duo $45 After MIR @ Fry's

Fry's currently has the Lexar 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo for $45 after a $25 mail-in rebate. The rebate expires on Thursday, April 26 so you'll need to take advantage of this deal soon. Once again I wasn't able to find the item on their site but they should have them available in-store if you can make it to a Fry's retail location.

Sony cuts Euro price of PSP

Sony has announced plans to cut the price of PlayStation Portable, which will retail for GBP 129.99 in the UK and EUR 169.99 in the rest of Europe from Friday May 4.

In addition the company is dropping the RRP of Platinum titles to GBP 14.99, with five games down for release at the new price point - Ridge Racer 2, Tekken, Killzone, LocoRoco and Moto GP.

"PSP is unique and is constantly evolving. It offers the widest palette of mobile entertainment, from gaming to video, music, photos and Internet," said SCE UK managing director Ray Maguire.

"But now the exciting possibility of connecting remotely to PlayStation 3 makes PSP more relevant than ever. So what better time to offer a brand new price point, and the launch of five new Platinum titles?"

The PSP currently carries an official RRP of GBP 149.99 / EUR 199.99. Earlier this month, the price of the handheld in the US was also reduced by USD 30 to hit USD 169.99.

Ellie Gibson
April 24, 2007

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Making PSP friendlier to Web 2.0 sites

Games Digest recently tested the PSP web browser to find out how compatible it was with popular Web 2.0 sites. The browser did fairly well in rendering many sites, such as amazon, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, and Twitter. However, there were many other sites that experienced issues, some crippling enough to make the site unusable.

There are alternatives, though. My personal PSP browser is filled with bookmarks that point to mobile versions of sites. These versions are usually intended for cell phones, but their minimalistic design is guaranteed to work on PSP--and quickly, too. For example, loading the Mobile version of PSP Fanboy (m.pspfanboy.com) allows me to check for the latest updates on the site while I'm on the go. It may not have all the functions I want (such as comments), but it works really well on PSP.

Read the full article here...

Andrew Yoon
April 23, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy

Harrison hints at PlayStation 3 homebrew plans

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Phil Harrison has said the company would like to further open PlayStation 3 up to independent game developers in the future.

"I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone," Harrison said in an interview with Slashdot.

"We were one of the first companies to recognise this in 1996 with Net Yaroze on PS1. It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry."

Harrison went on to note that his involvement with games began in the 1980s as he tinkered with Commodore 64 games that appeared in magazines. "You'd spend hours typing in the code, line-by-line, and then countless hours debugging it to make it work and then you'd realise the game was rubbish after all that effort!

"The next step was to re-write aspects of the game to change the graphics, the sound, the control system or the speed of the gameplay until you'd created something completely new."

But he admits that these days the doors into the industry that might be opened by going through that process "are largely closed by the nature of the videogame systems themselves being closed".

Read the full article here...

Tom Bramwell
April 23, 2007

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

SCEA: PS3 Only Console to See Gains in March

With the March NPD results now available, the big three console makers have begun to weigh in on their respective performances. Although the PS3 sold just 130K units in the U.S. for March, SCEA noted that it's the only console to see an increase (2% month-over-month), while Wii was down 22% and Xbox 360 was down 12%.

The full statement from SCEA follows:

"According to NPD data, March 2007 showed a 24% increase in retail dollars generated year-over-year for the PlayStation brand in North America with total sales of $447 million, due in part to the addition of the PS3 platform as well as the strong launch performance of God of War II for PS2 at retail. While PS3 saw a month-over-month increase of 2% with sales of 129,638 units, we continued to find ourselves supply constrained in March due primarily to the shift in manufacturing focus to the PS3 PAL version to support the launch of the system in Europe. PSP also witnessed gains in March, up 2% over February with sales of 179,796 units. The price of the PSP Core system was dropped from $199 to $169 in early April, which has received very positive retailer and consumer response. PS2 continued to be a strong performer in March, with unit sales of 279,866. On the software front, we were pleased to see sales increases from February for both the PSP and PS2. PS2 software showed a 29% increase with the launch of God of War II and PSP software demonstrated a 13% jump."

James Brightman
April 19, 2007

Source: GameDaily

Off Topic: Record Numbers For Game Industry in 2006

With a certain portable system from Nintendo breaking hardware and software records, you just knew there was going to be good news overall for the game industry come the end of the fiscal year. Sure enough, 2006 was a record year, according to Japan's Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association (CESA).

Mainichi.com and Asahi.com, relaying an announcement from the firm, report that worldwide game industry related shipments totaled 1,632,300,000,000 yen (approximately $14.2 billion) for the year. This is the highest figure since CESA started providing reports in 1996. The previous record was in 2001, where a hot PS2 pushed shipments to 1,457,400,000,000 yen.

This figure breaks down to 958.1 billion yen for hardware and 674.2 billion yen for software. Both of these figures are also new records. Software sales had previously peaked in 2000 at 570 billion yen. Hardware had previously peaked in 2001 at 930 billion yen.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Nintendo's hot portable was mentioned by CESA as reason for the record number. The dual screened device in both its original and redesigned "lite" forms accounted for 30.9% of hardware sales, beating the PSP's 20.1%, the PS2's 18.8%, and the PS3's 18.5%. It was the same story in software, with the Nintendo hardware taking 34.8% of sales, beating the PS2's 29.8%. The PSP got just 7.9% of the total.

Surprisingly, when you look exclusively at Japan, where that certain portable system is fast on its way to topping the PS2 in lifetime sales, 2006 was not a record breaking year. Japanese shipments reached 679.9 billion yen, down some from 1997's record 760 billion yen. While hardware, with 266.5 billion yen in sales was at an all time high, the 413.3 billion yen in software could not compete with 1997's 580 billion, despite beating 2005's 310 billion by a wide amount. As reason for the strong sales in 1997, CESA stated that software prices were higher that year.

IGN Staff
April 23, 2007

Source: IGN UK