Hacking the PSP Blog

Rumor (sort of): PSP Phone from Sony Ericsson

Nowadays everything seems to be converging into a mobile phone. It already can be a perfectly good digital camera, a mobile TV station a music player or GPS receiver. One of the things missing here was a mobile gaming platform. But it’s coming too.

And who’s better positioned to create a perfect mobile gaming platform then Sony? It already has one - Sony PSP. It also makes some great mobile phones via joint venture with Swedish Ericsson.

Their recent patent filing shows how Sony Ericsson will go about integrating these two gadgets:



The main question Sony Ericsson asked when designing PSP phone was - what is the main problem with using your phone for mobile games?

And the answer was - gaming controls.The numeric keypad is just not good enough to control the action in games. But who says all the keys on the numeric keypad have to be identical?

Read the full story here...

Source: Unwired View

Video game retailers to be educated on ESRB ratings reinforcement

A major initiative to reinforce the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings on video games has been launched recently by distributing ready-to-use store signages about ESRB ratings to 10,000 independent and small chain retailers in an effort to further support store policies against selling video games with Mature-rated content.

According to the press release from ESRB (who's working together with Ingram Entertainment), the distribution was carried out by including the signage materials in the May 28th issue of Ingram's Entertainment Preview magazine. The said issue will will coincide with the June "Entertainment Ratings & Labeling Awareness Month", so you can expect more fancy posters to be put up on your local video game shops and rentals. Apparently, the effort to educate parents regarding what games kids can play is not enough, thus the move to concentrate on video game retailers for the meantime. The signages will also serve as a tool to further educate the general public.

It should not be that much of a bad news for the younger Metal Gear Solid fans, though. It's just a matter of letting someone older buy a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 for them - or have their parent-slash-guardian with them during the purchase. Well, it seems that the ESRB is really working on letting us know what these ratings mean.

Source: PSPUpdates

New York Assembly Restricts Game Sales

In yet another bid to restrict the purchase of M-rated games by minors, New York assemblyman, Joseph Lentol, has gotten a new piece of legislation past the New York Assembly, reported GameDaily BIZ today. The newly-passed bill will make it a felony to sell M-rated videogames to minors. Transgression of this law could result in 1-4 years of jail-time.

Lentol's A08696 bill would create an Advisory Council on Interactive Media and Youth Violence, which would be responsible for evaluating the ESRB's ratings policies. The bill is purposely vague, and would punish the sale of games depicting "depraved violence and indecent images" as class E felonies. The bill defines "depraved violence" as any representation of "rape, dismemberment, physical torture, mutilation, or evisceration of a human being." The bill also contains a provision which obliges new game consoles to come with built-in parental controls. Of course, this is redundant, as the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 all have parental controls in place already.

Read the full article here...

Micah Seff
May 31, 2007

Source: IGN