One of the topics discussed at our roundtable with Sony at E3 (besides their dislike for paying for features and their 20/20 hindsight as to what went wrong with the PS3′s development) was piracy. Piracy was half the reason SCEA’s Jack Tretton gave to why the PSP is not living up to its promise as a powerhouse portable console, with the other half being the straight-shooting admission that PSP owners didn’t want to pay for ports of PS2 games. So what can you loyal fans do when developers aren’t putting out the type of content worth playing? Homebrew, the magical world of quasi-legal third-party PSP software including web apps, radio apps, Super Nintendo/NES emulators and ripped PS1 games. I’m going to show you how to get your PSP to do all this and more.
It’s tough to make out much from these shots, but according to their source, they are of the next PSP (the PSP model 3000). The specs include a built-in microphone as well as an updated button set that replaces the “Home” button with a PlayStation button (to more closely resemble the PS3).
From late April, it looks like Sony’s PSP Lite will be getting a matte bronze skin colour as part of a new Value Pack. This pack will include a 32MB Memory Stick Duo and an AV cable along with the newly tanned PSP. Available for around US$200, the new pack is scheduled for release in Japan— we don’t know when or if it will hit this side of the Pacific. But you don’t want a third place colour, do you? Gold is the only way to go. [AV Watch]
Dark-AleX has just released a hack for the PSP that boots from the Memory Stick, and will allow you to select any firmware version you so choose. The app, dubbed Time Machine, will also boot-up PSPs with destroyed firmware, a second life for you not-so-great hackers out there. It functions via Pandora, and looks a bit tricky to get to grips with at the moment.
The PSP is becoming a formidable platform with gaming, Skype, music and video all under the hood, but what if the standard battery does not cut it? Sony Japan has just announced a 2200 mAh battery pack for the PSP slim, which will allow up to 7-11 hours of continuous gaming and 7-11 hours of video playback.
