PSP Blogger - PlayStation® Portable Fansite

After the recent discovery of the PSP 3000 label (it was found in the online manual), things started to get real busy in the rumor world. People seem to believe that the new model will most definitely have dual analog sticks as seen here and here.

Hmm, dual analog sticks eh? Wonder if this would be such as good thing? Yeah the idea of having two sticks sounds really nice although I can already see some complications arising if this actually becomes reality. New games will obviously be designed with dual analog in mind but where exactly will that leave old PSP owners? I’m seriously not going to upgrade again.
Another thing that also comes to mind when looking at dual analog is PS2 and PSone ports. PSP gamers will really start to see port heaven if dual controls actually make it to the handheld. This however wasn’t the only rumors flouting around.

Here are some of the features people are hoping to see in the new model (although some of these are really far out).

• Bluetooth (I like this one)
• Integrated Hard Drive
• PS2 Emulation
• Integrated GPS
• Touch Screen
• Double the RAM (again?)
• HDMI port
• Integrated Camera
• Vibration / Rumble (might cause gamers to drop their PSP)

I honestly can’t say if any of the above mentioned features will be included in the new model but I’m really curios to see what plans Sony have up their sleeve this time around.

As you might have noticed, the PS Store is currently blooming with new content (in certain countries of course) and with a new layout coming soon the PS Store has quite a promising future ahead of it.

Price wise however things don’t seem that promising. As you know all purchases on the store are done via credit card. The store however only allows you to activate your PSP on one country setting. What this basically means is that say you sign up for an American account but change to UK afterwards all your content downloaded from the American store won’t play due to license restrictions.

Well since I live in South Africa I obviously selected the South African store as I prefer viewing the currency (Rand) from my own country for easier purchases. Last night I had a little peak at the American store just out of curiosity and was quite shocked at what I discovered. They are overcharging me!

1 USD ($) currently equals 8 South African Rand (R).

Here is an example:

Beats on the USA store costs $5 which equals to R40 whereas on the South African store the same game sells at R75 ($9+). I haven’t checked the pricing on the stores from other countries but I’m sure there’ll be some differences too. Why is Sony doing this? There is no import costs involved since its downloadable content. If I knew this from the beginning I would have signed up for the USA store, and even if I do that now all my already purchased games simply won’t work. I could have purchased Flow and Beats from the USA store for basically the same price as only one game from the SA store.

Really sucks.

Gauntlet Legends is another title hitting the Playstation Store this year, so let’s go see what this classic is all about…

Originally released on arcade machines by Atari in 1998 the title ported itself to the Playstation, Nintendo 64 and (gasp!) Sega Dreamcast. Gauntlet Legends is a hack ‘n slash RPG (yes, another one) that doesn’t really offer much than the usual killing, collecting, and leveling RPG gamers have gotten pretty use to over the years. Interestingly enough the original title named Gauntlet was released in 1985 and also had an expansion that made it to the Xbox, Gamecube and PS2 as Gauntlet: Dark Legacy.

The Nintendo 64 version was reviewed by IGN in 1999 and scored a pretty decent 7.7 although the score seem to have been focused more on the multiplayer functionality of the game (which obviously won’t work with the store titles). Here’s a quote from IGN:

“This is a very accurate translation of an arcade game to a console and that's a nice accomplishment but how much you'll like it depends on what you thought about it in the arcades. I for one think it's worth a rent first but don't pick it up if you don't like multiplayer co-op games or have no friends.”

Well I’m not really sure if I should get excited by this release although I might just give it a go to see what I’ve missed. If you’re a Gauntlet Legends fan however then this is your lucky day.

Do you sometimes just stare at your fish tank for hours wondering how it would be like to actually be a fish? I guess the biggest nightmare for fish must be to get caught by a nice sharp hook. What on earth does this have to do with the preview? More than you think my friend so let’s get started.

Kawa no Nushi Tsuri aka Legend of the River King is a RPG developed by Natsumi (the same guys that created the Harvest Moon series). Ok fine, I have a confession to make. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of Legend of the River King and was quite surprised that the series was released on various consoles such as NES, SNES, GB, PSX, PS2, and GBA. Either these games where really bad or I’ve been missing something the past couple of years.

The prime object of this game believe it or not is fishing. Your mission is to go find this big fish known as Guardian. Your sister however has been infected with some deadly disease and the only cure is provided by this so called Guardian (sounds like a real sad story to me). The usual RPG elements like collecting stuff, buying stuff, selling stuff, upgrading stuff and chatting to the town’s locals about stuff is also present.

But wait, there’s more! Also included is the very cool fish tank mode (aka Raise) which allows you to raise, breed and feed… fish! Tamagotchi fans should be thrilled. The title is planned for release somewhere throughout the course of the year. ><))’>

The PSP has turned 3 and everywhere on the net you’ll find articles on how the sales figures improved this year. With new features such as Skype, Go!Messenger and games like God of War, Final Fantasy CC and of course Patapon, the PSP has really made it name for itself. PSP fans all over rejoice with the resent success and DS fanboys are still using the same old PSP complains (hey! Stop throwing tomatoes at me!).

Here are some of the PSP highlights for 2008:

1. Not only is the PSP slimmer but it’s also available in new funky colors and special edition box sets.
2. New bigger memory cards have been announced.
3. God of War, Final Fantasy CC, MH 2nd G, do I need to say more?
4. PSP is currently the second best selling console worldwide!
5. Skype, Go!Messenger, and other new firmware upgrades have been added.
6. PSP manages to out sell the Wii in Japan.
7. PSP sales figures are almost reaching 32 million!

Besides the above mentioned highlights PSP gamers also have some great titles to look forward to like Star Ocean, Secret Agent Clank, R-Type Command, N+, Devil May Cry, Phantasy Star Portable, Metal Gear Solid DGN2 and Echocrome just to name a few.

You might have however been wondering what PSP titles have been bringing in most of the sales. Well according to Wikipedia the best selling PSP title seems to be Daxter. Let’s take a look at the sales figures shall we.

1. Daxter (2 Million units sold)
2. Gran Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (1.95 Million units sold)
3. Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (1.95 Million units sold)
4. Monster Hunter Freedom (1.15 Million units sold)
5. Need for Speed Most Wanted (1.04 Million units sold)

In the next couple of months we’ll see GOW, Wipeout Pulse, Final Fantasy CC and even Patapon added to the list. The question is if Daxter will still remain the PSP king.

Well for those who don’t know yet, Final Fantasy: Dissidia is the next FF installment coming to PSP after Crisis Core. This title however will be quite different to what fans have gotten use to over the years. Dissidia is a 1 on 1 fighting game (yes I’m serious) and that’s about it.

Now before you start yelling “OMG WTF” just relax and here me out. This title will be very different to the usual side-scrolling fighting games you’ve been playing in the arcades. Dissidia will have full 3D batte arenas and will allow you character to perform various special stunts like running up walls, sliding off rails etc. The game will also include EX meters, combos, and special attacks as you would expect from a fighting title.

The fun part is that finally you can have all your favorite Final Fantasy characters killing each other in the palm of your hands. Announced fighters include Warrior of light, Garland, Firion, Sephiroth, Squall, Ultimecia, Zidane, Kuja and more so it should be quite interesting to see what these guys can do.

The lack of PSP software sales is apparently due to piracy figures for the console. Now while their might some truth in that statement I also believe it’s due to lack of great quality titles. Strangely enough there are more PSP titles scoring over 80% on Gamespot reviews than DS titles. Just look at how the sales figures raised when God of War COA, Final Fantasy CC, Monter Hunter 2nd G and Patapon where released. This tells me that great quality titles equal good console sales (yeah pretty obvious).

Piracy however is something that has been plaguing the PSP for some time now although the same thing was present with the PS1 and PS2. Still today the PS2 however sells extremely well.

Here’s a quote from PSP Fanboy regarding the piracy problem…

“Piracy is ruining the PSP. Although quality titles continue to come out on the handheld, many have been wondering: where are the software sales? Hardware has done incredibly well since the release of the redesigned PSP-2000, but PSP software still fails to make it to the top of the charts. What's to blame? It's easy to blame pirates, who take advantage of the easily circumventable security of the system.”

Everybody who owns a PSP is very well familiar with the term custom firmware or the name Dark Alex. I do however support CFW in terms of running homebrew applications but I don’t support piracy.

As we all know CFW allows the PSP to run various emulators such as NES, SNES, Arcade, Atari, Gameboy and even Genesis (which might also explain the fairly low sales of the Sega Genesis Collection). Hardware wise the PSP has more than enough power to run DS emulation but there’s a little problem though.

Nintendo was fully aware of the fact that the PSP is a stronger unit therefore making it possible to run emulation of the DS. I’ve read on various forums people reckon this is why Nintendo also decided to rather go for touch screen and dual screen making it fairly impossible for the PSP to properly emulate the DS. Imagine the DS was just an improved version of the Gameboy Advance. Emulation would have been fairly easy on the PSP and this might have even caused a real dip in DS hardware and software sales.

The current rumor is that Sony plans to implement some new security in the upcoming firmware 4.0 for the PSP resulting in discontinued use of the Pandora Battery fix. How true all these rumors are I honestly don’t know but we’ll see soon enough.

Feel free to comment on what your opinion is about the whole story.

Well for those who aren’t familiar with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus (what a mouth full) here’s a quote of what the game is all about.

“Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus is a standalone follow-up to last year's award winning stealth action title Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Focusing on a portable multiplayer experience, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus players will be able to enjoy more maps, more missions, and recruit a talented crew of war heroes for battling real opponents in online arenas”

The title has recently been released in Europe and is currently err…out of stock in SA (Take 2). The PSP is however not that popular in South Africa and that makes me wonder how good the multiplayer based games are doing here. I probably only know two people who actually own a PSP which is quite sad. I would really like to buy the title but due to the lack of PSP gamers here I might just hold back for awhile. For the lucky MGS fans that have buddies with PSP’s I would fully recommend purchasing the latest installment.

The chances are real good that you’ve probably heard the DivX rumor for PSP. How did it all start? Well a Sony employee apparently confirmed DivX for a future firmware update. Unfortunately he did not say which one though. Now firmware 4.0 will be a big number in the firmware history for PSP so we can only assume that DivX functionality will be included.

If we have a look back at 3.0 we see lots of major changes like camera, remote play, network play and a visual player amongst others so it would only make sense that Sony has similar plans for version 4. Sony recently released version 3.93 which only included minor fixes already giving us the indication that bigger changes is going to happen with 4.0.

So you might come to wonder what exactly the big deal is with DivX and adding it to the PSP. Simply put, DivX will allow users to download movies and TV shows through the PC PSN Store, or from the Store on the PS3, or from third-party online retailers (which will probably be used more). The thing I’m wondering about is what besides DivX will Sony include in the new version. Curiosity killed that cat and I had to go do some rumor research on other extras we might see.

Well after finding a million firmware wish lists with some bizarre requests (PS3 emulation??), there was a few valid features that popped up. The list included various things like Shockwave Player, Adobe Flash Player 9, Quicktime video, Realplayer, more visuals for music player, mp3 equalizer, and some RSS improvements to name a few. We can only hope to see some of these features added to the new firmware version but I did however stumble upon a very interesting rumor.

The delay in new firmware is apparently caused by Sony adding some “new” protection to the PSP resulting in discontinued use of the very famous Pandora battery custom firmware tool. I’m not sure how true these rumors are but we’ll see soon enough.

To think that over 30 million PSP’s are floating out there somewhere is quite a thought. The resent jump in hardware sales is most likely due to the resent release of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus. The sales figures will jump even more when Monster Hunter 2nd G gets released worldwide. I did however expect Japan to have the majority of PSP console sales but to my surprise America came out as the victor with 12 million sales versus the 8 million from Japan.

What makes it even more interesting is that the PSP was the best selling console beating the very popular DS with approximately 14000 units for the week in Japan. Even more interesting is the fact the PSP is currently the third best selling console worldwide beating the Xbox 360 and PS3 with over 10 million units.

The current best selling PSP game for the week is God of War in America, Monster Hunter 2nd G in Japan and strangely enough Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 in the rest of the world. The rise in PSP sales is not only due to the new games but also the extra addition in console colors (Japan has the new Mint Green edition) and new applications like GO!Messenger and Skype.

Seems like 2008 is a really good year for the PSP and with rumors of DivX playback being included with the version 4.0 firmware who knows what can happen.

Don’t tell me you never heard of Klonoa! Well this game is really similar to that pink cute monster called Kirby if you ever played that before. The title is a side-scrolling action type game with a Pseudo-3D appearance.

Throughout the game you’ll do the usual Super Mario stunts by jumping around, ridding the world of baddies and collecting various items etc. The title did very well on the PSX and even received a 9.2 and editors choice award from Gamespot (God of War only received 8.5!) so check the review there for more information.

There is currently no ETA on the store arrival but should show up in the next couple of months. (Hey, it’s better than waiting for GT Mobile)

I really miss this game! This was seriously one of the best arcade racing titles available for the PSX and it’s finally coming to the PS Store (no exact ETA). I currently only own a PSP (must seriously get that donation button up) so playing PSX games is usually out of the question unless it pops up on the PS Store.

I almost convinced myself to go buy a second hand PSX but since Metal Gear Solid has recently been released on the store (currently only Japanese store) and the fact that other great titles like Klonoa and Tekken 3 are coming soon I might just reconsider.

For those who enjoyed playing Ridge Racer 1 & 2 on the PSP or any Ridge Racer for that matter I would fully recommend getting the Type 4 title when it arrives on the store.

Drivers start your engines! (Hey wait, wasn’t that Daytona?)

On a previous post of mine I explained about the PSP only being region locked for movies and as much as I still want to see a PAL copy of The Silent Hill Experience I can bargain you that it’s not going to happen.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel though. MTV seems to be going the UMD movie region free route. Instead of it being labeled PAL or NTSC it will indeed be labeled ALL (huh?). Either way it’s a nice move since UMD movies aren’t really the best selling media on the market.

Maybe making the movies region free is just the lift UMD needs. Hollywood on the other hand does not seem to agree with this idea. Some PAL users also like anime you know.

Suddenly NTSC attacked with a hyper uppercut and PAL died. Does this have anything to do with the post? Not really but anyway, for those not familiar with NTSC and PAL…well…err…where have you been the past couple of years? Go check out Wikipedia :P

Anyway, PAL and NTSC PSP games can be played on any PSP console but when it comes to movies it’s a totally different story. NTSC UMD movies can only be played on a NTSC PSP and the same goes for PAL. Usually this really isn’t that much of a problem since most major movie titles get released on PAL and NTSC format. Unfortunately for Silent Hill fans staying in South Africa, Europe, etc. there is a little problem when it comes to the UMD named The Silent Hill Experience.

Silent Hill Experience is a movie/digital comic dedicated to die-hard Silent Hill fans (like me!) and comes complete with comics, screenshots, trailers and more. The only problem is that it’s only available for the NTSC format and that truly sucks. This might even give some PAL PSP owners reason to go over to custom firmware.

Sorry for being the bearer of bad news, happy a wonderful day! :)