Hacking the PSP Blog

All Colours PSP Slim Preorders Open

Yesasia.com have today opened preorders for all the new colours of PSP Slim that includes the Felicia Blue, Ice Silver, Ceramic White, Lavender Blue and Rose Pink.

They are retailing at US$269.99 [~£133.83] and come with free shipping (but they dont ship to europe/UK)

Heres some info about the slim PSP for those who didnt know:

The PSP Playstation Portable revolutionized handheld gaming when it was first released back in 2004, and it's now been redesigned! Sony has improved their landmark handheld gaming console, adding new features and refining others. The new PSP is now 33% lighter, weighing approximately 189 grams, as opposed to the previous model's 280 grams. The new model is also 19% slimmer, reducing the PSP's thickness from 23 to 18.6 mm. An attractive Felicia Blue color scheme completes the PSP's slim new look.

The new PSP possesses more than just cosmetic differences. The unit has an increased RAM of 64MB (up from 32MB), and includes a new feature to temporarily store data from UMDs, thus reducing loading times. Battery life has also been increased, and the addition of a video-out port allows PSP owners to play their favorite PSP games on an external monitor. Now games, UMD movies, and media saved to the Memory Stick Duo can be played on a full-sized television! Another new innovation is the ability to charge the PSP via the USB port. Simply connect the PSP to a PC or Playstation 3 with a USB cable to initiate data transfer or charge the unit.

Source: PSP News

July NPDs Show PS3 Didn't Pull Ahead of 360

(Comment from Auri: Jeez, if you have a PS3, there's what - maybe 20 games for it? Maybe 5 that are actually worth playing all the way through? It's a great BluRay player, but Sony really needs great games - not just "arcade" games downloaded onto the console. Oh, and developers need to be able to easily write software for the console... check out the Madden '08 on PS3 vs. XBox 360 articles here and here... 2x faster on 360... the reason: EA's developers didn't have enough time to figure out how to code for the PS3...)

Despite last month's price drop, Sony's PlayStation 3 console just couldn't pull ahead of the Microsoft Xbox 360. Both, according to the latest NPD results, are still dwarfed by the continued domination of Nintendo's Wii console. 1up has the numbers for July: 'PlayStation 2 - 222k, PlayStation 3 - 159k, PSP - 214k, Xbox 360 - 170k, Wii - 425k, Nintendo DS - 405k, Game Boy Advance -- 87k.' For further commentary we can turn to Gamasutra, which offers a further breakdown on the numbers and some big picture perspective for this year:

"Total industry revenue for 2007 presently stands at $7.0 billion. If there is no year-on-year growth for any month until the end of 2007, then the industry will finish the year with $14.5 billion in revenue, an increase in 16% over 2006. That's a reasonably pessimistic scenario ... If we start with our current $7.0 billion as of the end of July and continue at a rate of 40% growth through the end of the year, then we arrive at a total of $17.5 billion for all of 2007 ... If Wii supply constraints are eased, Halo 3 sells as well as expected, Sony's first-party software attracts more PS3 buyers, and Rock Band and Guitar Hero III are both hits, it seems likely that revenues may go above $18 billion. In this optimistic scenario, industry revenues during the single month of December 2007 would equal or surpass the total annual revenue from all of 1997."


Source: PSP Updates

Sony Ericsson 'obviously' considering PlayStation-branded phone

Stuffing an electronic device in your pocket simply isn't worth enduring the oddly shaped bulge if it can't play some decent games, right? Sony Ericsson seemingly agrees in an interview with Pocket Gamer, with the phone company's Peter Ahnegard (touché!) discussing the possibility of releasing a PlayStation-branded phone. Ahnegard explains that sticking the PlayStation name on a phone is easier said than done, as consumers have certain expectations from such a prominent label.

"We're not launching a brand of handset simply because we can, but because we can lead up to the expectations of the consumer," he said. "Up until today we haven't felt we could launch a PlayStation phone because it wouldn't be recognised as a true continuation of that brand of products." When further prodded, Ahnegard admits that a PlayStation phone is "obviously something that we're looking at" and expects it to materialize in some form before Christmas... "but exactly which Christmas I can't confirm!" Well, that narrows it down.

Source: Joystiq & PSP News