A Bigger, Better PSP is On the Way
EyeToy, GPS, Flash movies, PS one games? It seems there going to be even more to the portable PlayStation soon.
Published: March 15, 2006
It was little more than a passing sentence in the press release from the PlayStation Business Briefing that revealed the PSP would be getting a new $200 version, but that doesn't mean it's not a big deal. The PSP is getting its own camera, and it would be foolhardy to think Sony won't brand the sucker with something resembling the same EyeToy name the PS2's bigger brother sports.
The camera is just the top of the iceberg, though. The camera opens up the ability to do video and Voice over IP, both technologies that Sony plans to roll out for the system. A GPS system will be grafted onto the little portable (complete with a version of GPS-enabled version of Hot Shots Golf, and firmware updates will enhance things even further, adding RSS feeds (right now, it's just RSS audio/podcasts) and the ability to render Flash animations and movies.
Perhaps most encouraging of all, the ability to boot programs directly from a Memory Stick -- something the homebrew community has attempted to do for ages now (and with quite a bit of success, we might add). Not only does this mean that self-contained PSP apps can be downloaded and run straight from the Memory Stick, but Sony is promising a far more interesting option: downloaded PS one games.
Given the PSP's general muscle and obvious improvements over the original PlayStation, it would seem to be a fairly obvious and straightforward process to port things over, but the PSP lacks the core components from the original PlayStation that the PS2 has to ensure proper compatibility, and the results so far on some emulated games have been less than stellar. The question, then, is whether Sony will take the same approach that Microsoft is using with the Xbox 360 and tweaking emulation of each game for the PSP.
We'll know plenty more in the coming months, and as soon as we have some concrete details, we'll pass them along.
The camera is just the top of the iceberg, though. The camera opens up the ability to do video and Voice over IP, both technologies that Sony plans to roll out for the system. A GPS system will be grafted onto the little portable (complete with a version of GPS-enabled version of Hot Shots Golf, and firmware updates will enhance things even further, adding RSS feeds (right now, it's just RSS audio/podcasts) and the ability to render Flash animations and movies.
Perhaps most encouraging of all, the ability to boot programs directly from a Memory Stick -- something the homebrew community has attempted to do for ages now (and with quite a bit of success, we might add). Not only does this mean that self-contained PSP apps can be downloaded and run straight from the Memory Stick, but Sony is promising a far more interesting option: downloaded PS one games.
Given the PSP's general muscle and obvious improvements over the original PlayStation, it would seem to be a fairly obvious and straightforward process to port things over, but the PSP lacks the core components from the original PlayStation that the PS2 has to ensure proper compatibility, and the results so far on some emulated games have been less than stellar. The question, then, is whether Sony will take the same approach that Microsoft is using with the Xbox 360 and tweaking emulation of each game for the PSP.
We'll know plenty more in the coming months, and as soon as we have some concrete details, we'll pass them along.