Games! Games! Games!

Wieder mal ein Video von Acidmods. Diesmal: Eine psp mit 2tem Analog Nub!

My little boy,that is! He was crying out loud! Imagine this, he got a PSP(white covered) for almost 2 yrs now. It was a gift for him when he was like 3 and it was a bit expensive of that time because it was a new cool stuff! Like double the price compare to now. Since it has been badly used by him..of course it was dropped many times he even throw it countless times..Poor thing. But this afternoon, he saw a black and a blue one and he asked his Dad if he can get another new one.

i’ve always liked the Nintendo DS better cos it has so many more games but the screen of the PSP is just too alluring. plus i can use it to watch videos on train rides and also listen to music. so that should be enough to warrant buying one. only cost me $220 with a 2GB memory stick and 1 new game. pretty good deal actually.

Today I played the Puzzle Quest - Challenge of the Warlords demo. It was recently released for Nintendo DS and PSP and it seems pretty sweet. Someone had a really good idea that must have sounded something like: "-let's make a puzzle rpg!".

There have been many rumors about a second PSP coming out. This time however, third party developers (and other highly placed sources) have confirmed that there will be a “PSP2″ and that they are trying to get their games ready for the launch (possible later this year).

Once upon a time, I was an avid anti-Sony gamer. I wanted as little to do with the Playstation, Playstation 2, or the majority of the titles thereof. When the first news of the Sony PSP was released I shrugged it off as just another flop, and went back to playing my Gameboy Advance SP. There simply wasn’t any company who could possibly fight Nintendo’s stranglehold on the portable gaming market. Truth be told, I was by and large right in this case. The PSP was overpriced, undersupported, and overstuffed with lackluster functions.

It's two nights before Christmas and all through the house not a homebrew developer was stirring except Grimfate126. The generous guy has released the fourth installment of his Lua Animation Lib as his present for all Lua developers. This app helps users understand the ins and outs of Lua animations for the PSP.

yesterday, 28 Oct was Daryl’s bday. he invited the whole class to East Coast Park for celebration and stay over. met some of the classmates at bedok and bought bottles of drink and snacks, and 2 pizzas! we waited for Bus 401 nearly for 20 minutes, and we only reached ECP at around 7pm. hairani, syarif, clare, chuan and miyane were there. then started to hee-hee-and-ha-ha. Used peng yong’s PSP to play racing car, while the rest played PS at the living room.

I bought a PlayStation Portable a couple of weeks ago. This was the first serious “splurge” since we bought the laptop computer last year, so I don’t feel too bad (splurging on house stuff obviously doesn’t count, because it’s more of a necessity than a luxury).

Alot of people have been emailing me saying "This is soooo fake....". Well, I am here to tell you that these photos are unedited except in picture number 2, I had to edit something out as you can see clearly. The actual PSP part is unedited and these are not photoshopped.

“Things aren’t good in PSP-land says an article titled “R.I.P. PSP” over at the Gameworld Network. The five-page piece takes a fairly balanced and detailed look at why it’s game over for the PlayStation Portable. Here are the main points:

Sony announced some future plans for the PlayStation Portable (PSP), at Comic-Con, a comic book event in San Diego, USA.

This review was intended to be a DVD-to-PSP how-to guide. Unfortunately, the Media Manager software does not offer a simple solution for porting your DVD stockpile to the PSP. And why should it? Sony wants you to support the UMD format. So what does Media Manager have to offer PSP owners?

UMD, a format developed by Sony for the PSP market, is apparently being put out to pasture. Sales are simply not what were anticipated. Fair enough. There didn’t seem to be a focused plan for UMD.

I’ve been having a hell of a good time with my PSP. It’s basically the wonderchild of geekdom. Though in it’s most often seen form it’s pretty much just a thingy to play the (crappy) games that are realised for it. Luckly, I only own one game which I can’t play. So… I use my PSP to watch movies, read books, read comix (/me is embarresed), and play old SNES or Arcade games. Ahhh the wonders of homebrew.

The Sony PSP is a portable gaming device. This cannot be denied. While homebrewed programs open more and more functionality to the PSP, it can never aspire to replace a desktop or laptop computer. It does, however, lower the barrier of entry into mobile content design. As a designer looking for additional skill sets to acquire, the mobile world has always been of interest to me. The strict restraints of a small screen, small file size requirements and the competing mobile standards are all new to a designer used to designing websites and applications for use large monitors. This design primer covers some of the basics of you need to know before designing a PSP compatible website. Note: The following information applies web browser bundled in the 2.0 firmware update.

Modojo is reporting that iRIVER has announced a new handheld games console to go up against Sony’s PlayStation Portable and Nintendo’s DS as well as pictures of the new device.

Basically all the following links are about $ony’s “guerrilla” style marketing campaign for the PSP. Here’s the basic idea. Sony, a major international corporation, paid ad artists, to go around in major cities and paint PSP ads, that look like graffiti. These ads were 1. not paid for 2. painted on other people’s property and 3. vandalism basically. But still i think they figure since they’re a big corporation, they can just go around and put stuff on other people’s property just because they feel like it. This for some reasons sounds a lot like the Sony DRM scandal, which resulted in Sony recalling a whole slew of Sony BMG CDs, because they basically installed a malicious program onto peoples computers and made it hidden, so you wouldn’t even know it was on your computer if you had it. Even more so, removing this thing could break your OS.

In addition to just fixing bugs and holes, Sony also offers ‘attractive’ new features with higher firmware, such as Webbrowsing in v2.00+, LocationFree TV in v2.50+, vRSS feeds in 2.60+. The downside for users is that they must give up the homebrew capabilities on v1.50, which include console emulators [Gameboy/Color/Advance, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis etc], homebrew games and applications like a Wifi Radio and most infamously, Pirated PSP ISO launchers. These are all frowned upon by Sony, as they are illegal/Sony makes no money off of them, so newer firmwares have patched holes allowing these applications to work. This ‘updating firmware’ concept is so revolutionary, as Sony doesn’t need to churn out a new batch of PSP’s when exploits are found; they simply force users to update to play the newest games such as GTA.

Really this thing is a handheld media center, if you wanna watch video, listen to SOME music and maybe play a game or two in your free time, I’d highy advice you just spend your money one . There is such a deep community to hack these things, you can basically put anything you want onto one, and go about your business. From emulators, to TV eps, to dvds you’ve obtained in your own manner, lol, at the moment there is no real limit, and to add to it you also have wifi access built in. So unless your just interested in music, such as myself, you’d be a goddamn fool to waste your money. Now that I’m done ranting, if you’re in the giving mood, you can make a donation via paypal to the “Stop eric from having to sell his kidney to buy and ipod fund”. Help a brotha out lol

Sony has unveiled a host of music players over time, from MiniDisk Walkmans to players with a hard drive (like the Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1) to the music playing PSP (Playstation Portable). The dent these players are making in Apple’s dominance of the digital music industry are barely visible.

Well, the answer that $ony has come up with is that they want to make their money out of games, so the PSP (PlayStation Portable) automatically upgrades its internal software occasionally whenever a new hole in its defences against home-brew software is discovered. That’s the problem for home-brew creators: they need to hack the console to let it play non-official releases. Its a real battle of the titans, on one side you have a whole planet of determined hackers who want to get the best out of their machine and use it to play the things that they want to (which is fair enough, if they own it they should be able to do what they like with it - although I suspect that’s not the legal perspective) and on the other side you have $ony trying to patch up holes as soon as they are found.

I didn’t think I would be able to do it. I had ceased all frivolous spending for this month and put the money that I would have spent toward hurricane relief. Since Ken’s company was doubling donations to the Red Cross, I threw mine in with his. I really didn’t think I would be able to go a month without buying videogames, renting anime, or renewing my game subscriptions.

PS. Thanks to an open-source x86 emulator, Win95 can now run on a Playstation Portable.

Here's an interesting post about designing for the small screen that I ran across today. It's in the context of designing for the new browser included in the PlayStation Portable (PSP) firmware update. The PSP screen is 480px wide. The idea is to use a different CSS - nothing earth-shattering there. What is interesting is the way the writer proposes to detect the new PSP browser. There's also some useful info in the comments below the article (i.e. media="handheld") as a mobile device test. I've not targeted small screen devices, but I don't think it's far off for me.

Gamepark is releasing a new portable gaming system called the GPX2. I don’t have much info on this player but it looks a bit too similar to a Sony PSP if you ask me. Honestly, I can’t imagine this device making much of an impact on the gaming world. Quite frankly it’s all about titles folks.

That’s a pretty nifty little dock.

For those who do not know anything about Homebrew on the PSP here is a quick crash course. Homebrew is the given term to applications, emulators, and games that can be run on the PSP that were not developed by “professional” developers or authorized by Sony. The name Homebrew is accurate because many of the programs were written at home or without the backing of a developer.

Everything went great until near the evening my brother told my mother about he himself wanting to buy a new PlayStation Portable (PSP). My mother threw a big “NO YOU CAN’T BUY IT” right into his face and he started to go really insane.

THQ Inc. today announced an agreement with critically acclaimed development studio Team17 Software Ltd. to publish Worms on the PSP portable entertainment system and Nintendo DS.

The battery for Playstation Portable (PSP) is 1800mAh. And it lasts for about 4 hours. This article taught you how to use 4 rechargeable batteries to boost the battery life.

Ridge Racer doesn’t disappoint. I bought a Gameboy Advance just after their US release a few years back (I happened to be in the States at the time), and there was nothing amongst the launch titles for the GBA that had the same impact as Ridge Racer on the PSP. The presentation is, for the first time on a handheld gaming device, on a par with the presentation in games for the “big” consoles of this generation. The cute little loader game gives way to an excellent title sequence, immediately making clear that this little black box packs a big punch.

Yeah, you know you be kickin’ out the jams now with that PSP. Noah Vawter and Nathan Wray have whipped up PSPKick, a sample-based drum machine for the Playstation Portable. We’re quite sure this is exactly what Sony had in mind all along, eh Ken? [Thanks to everyone who sent this one in] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments © 2005 Weblogs, Inc. Ads by Google

PSP News Swedish developer DICE has revealed that a version of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is in progress for the PlayStation Portable at EA’s UK Studio, while work has commenced on a brand new FPS title at the firm’s Canadian offices.

Well, it took awhile, (though I certainly thought that it would take a lot longer) but a team has finally found a way to play UMD games on memory sticks. An anonymous group has released a loader for Lumines to allow it to be played through a memory stick, so you can have an image of the puzzle game on the stick, use the loader, and voila, you’re a dirty pirate. The loader requires a UMD on the device and a 1.5 firmware (sorry, no 1.0 Japanese PSP’s will work ATM), and the game currently has no sound, but no doubt this is a sign of things to come, with Sony becoming ever more paranoid (and rightly so) and releasing more firmware updates to cripple your PSP, and the PSP piracy scene about to get a massive kickstart.

Previously announced at last year’s E3, the action RPG Princess Crown, finally has a release date for the PlayStation Portable. Atlus had been planning the release of this game from the time the PSP had debuted.

Game consoles just cannot avoid the fate of being hacked to run unlicensed or unauthorized programs on it. We have heard mod PS, PS2, Xbox, etc etc. Now Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) is experiencing the same fate.

Earlier this week a program was released to allow homebrewed applications to run on the 1.5 version of the PSP. This works really great except for that fact that you have to have two memory sticks to do a swap. Hopefully sometime in the near future (next week, maybe?) someone will come up with a way to use it with just one card. Having all of my content seperated on two cards gets somewhat confusing and annoying.

A Tokyo adult video maker has put Sony Computer Entertainment in a difficult position by announcing it plans to produce adult-video discs that can be played on Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) game console.

Well it looks like the days of running Homebrew on your 1.5 version PSP are finally here. The folks over at ps2dev have released the Swaploit! which allows this. All you need is the exploit file that you can download from the above linked site, and 2 memory cards and you can run homebrew on your 1.5 PSP. Oh, and of course a homebrew app that you would like to run on your PSP!

However, this is often shortened to just 'keitai. A word by itself means which means a small or pocketable object; easily carried. It is even rendered in Katakana, the Japanese script used for foreign words in a possible attempt to make it appear modern or chic. The fact that the word for a mobile phone in Japan has been reduced to just 'keitai' reveals this high value the youth culture in Japan places on mobility. No small wonder that so many features have been packed into these keitai phones putting them 2-3 years ahead of the technology available for mobile phones in the American market (though the different signal standards, like GSM, preferred by each mobile company may also have something to do with this in the U.S.). This value on mobility has also effected the evolution of the design for other electronic devices such as handheld portable game systems which explains the current buzz about the new Sony Playstation Portable, the PSP.

A stylish gamergirl forwarded this link to me...colorful leather PSP cases, for a very reasonable price! All the colors are tasty, and I am fond of the orange.

The rise of handheld gaming has brought an intriguing twist into the industry. Each of the six handhelds (GBA, DS, PSP, Zodiac, N-Gage and Gizmondo) has wildly different and diverse features which offer a unique view on gameplay. Not only does this bring the afore-mentioned variation in the home systems to a whole new level, but their portability makes them more accessible than their cousins underneath the television. There’s another advantage that handheld gaming brings to the industry, but that will be discussed in a future article – however,...

On the subject of handhelds, the technology within them is absolutely amazing. A decade ago, 3D gaming was but a distant dream. Now, huge, expansive game worlds and highly detailed 3D visuals can be found on a pocket sized gadget, with graphics and features to even rival that of the home systems. Eight years ago, the N64 brought 3D games to life for the first time. Now, we have (visually) superior 3D games on tiny SD cards as opposed to huge cartridges, on a portable games machine. And the PSP goes a step further with graphics almost rivalling the...

Given this level of interest, PSP is in a good position to challenge the other devices in the portable gaming domain, especially devices from Nintendo, the current market leader. Gameboy Advanced and Gameboy DS, both from Nintendo, scored only a combined 33% among U.S. Internet users with purchase plans for a portable gaming device. Nokia N-Gage lags far behind with only 4% of future planned purchases.

Would you like to view RSS feeds on your PSP? You might want to check out MioMediaBox for PSP v1.11.

Attention all of my friends. Buy a PSP, read this article 8Bit Joystick.com: How to throw a PSP Wifi LAN Party, and let’s do it.

Haciendo que cada día este más cerca el PSP de convertirse en la maquinita hácelo todo preferida por los hackers, ahora lograron correr un emulador de Gameboy en el PSP. No es la primera vez que logran hacer andar una aplicación para PSP desde Memory Stick, pero es hasta el momento el hack más avanzando (demostrando lo que se podria llegar a hacer en el futuro). Sony esta firmando criptográficamente los programas y juegos que pueden ser corridos en la PSP, por lo que hasta el momento para hacer estos hacks necesitas la versión 1.0 del firmware...

Sony no tiene mucho que perder, la PS2 va a seguir vendiendo mas alla del lanzamiento de juegos buenos o malos. PERO el esfuerzo este anio va a estar en la PSP. Como puede ser que una consola mucho mas cara y poderosa compita con el Nintendo DS y no le gane? Sony hara todo lo posible para demostrar su superioridad y le intentara robarle el show a Nintendo.

There’s plenty of interesting reading in this interview with Bill Gates, including talk of the XBox sequel being launched this year, the future of the Windows Mobile platform, and the possibility of Microsoft attempting to compete with Sony’s PSP. You can read part one here: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000440041962/ with part 2 being posted sometime later today.

heavy.com has just announced a partnership with Sony and will expand it’s already popular website to include PSP downloads. The service, names H2G or Heavy 2 Go, will eventually bring heavy.com’s entire library of thousands of hours of animation and live-action video shorts available for free download on the PSP. These “PSP Packs” will be brought our regularly in the coming months.

I’ll update this list as I find more PSP video sites. Another option is to record television programs and DVDs straight from your TV, with no computer intervention required. If this sounds interesting to you, head on over to Lik-Sang to read more about the VRX02 Direct Recorder coming from RockRidgeSound in July. It’s available only as an import for $179, but it sounds very promising.

ZDNet reports that the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) lacks some serious wireless security as users will need to lower the security settings of their home ...

“Another step forward in the race to crack open the PSP: ps2nfo.com user Paradox worked out how to get a dump from a UMD disc, and has released the ISO files for several PSP games (Wipeout: Pure US, Ridge Racers Japanese, and Vampire Chronicles: The Chaos Tower Japanese). Also of note, UMD discs use the standard ISO9669 format, so the released ISOs can be burned to regular CDs or DVDs. Know that the games are not yet playable in this format, but it’s a big step forward now that all the reverse engineers out there can get their hands on this stuff.”

If you would like to give it a listen you can either download it directly [mp3 23min 11mb], or subscribe to the podcast RSS feed in your favorite aggregator. You can find the link to the podcast RSS feed in the sidebar. Enjoy!

Engadget is running a contest which pits the best PSP hack against the best Nintendo DS hack. Here are links to some of the more intriguing entries:

Yeah, we’re ringing the bells, but before we go any further we gotta warn you up front: this tool only works with Japanese PSPs, for now. But if you’ve got one or can get your mitts on one, you can use this Elf to PBP convertor tool to run code compiled for the PSP. The elf2pbp software converts the compiled code into a PBP file that can be executed from a memory stick when placed in a subdirectory of PSP/GAME. The other catch is that your Japanese PSP cannot be flashed to version 1.5. Yeah, lots of caveats on this one but still —...

It causes more problems than that. With the decrease in power on the PSP, Dynasty Warriors has been sent back to the launch of the Playstation 2. There's a deep, gaudy wall of fog surrounding everything; the ground is muddy, textures are bland, and the frame rate takes a hit all to make the skirmishes seem as epic as possible. That works on a more powerful system. On the PSP, it's a struggle to just make the game work right. It's fascinating how you can take out 20 enemies without even seeing a single one of them due to pop-up.

More PSP links: The Ultimate PSP Micro Scratch Removal Guide.

As all of the base stations along the track are not yet in place, the system switches users over to GPRS when there is no Wi-Fi signal, of course the user may notice the slower speeds but at least the conection will be maintained. I'm sure it won't be long before we'll be playing online games on our PSP consoles over Wi-Fi.

I just saw guys at Engadget use Abyss to showcase Howto setup your own PSP web. So very cool! Version 2.0 was released incorporating a lot of feature requests. If you’re wetting your toes in the webserver software, Abyss is a go.

AtomFilms: Mobile Movie Theater features downloadable movies specifically formatted for viewing on the PSP. Nice!

UPDATE: Somebody over at atomfilms needs to fix those files. All three end in .mp4, but the PSP cannot read them unless you capitalize them to .MP4. It took me about five minutes of cursing last night before I realized why the newly copied over films weren’t showing up.

All three currently available movies are entertaining. I watched them in bed last night. One downside: none of them were formatted to perfectly fit in the PSP fullscreen.

Well, it’s still not a standalone web browser, but there are reports that there will be another web browser included with “Derby Time”; not much more info though: “At this point, it is not clear how the functionality of the Derby Time browser and the Wipeout Pure browser differ.” If it takes less clicks to get to, then it is better.

I have to admit that I'm not a hardcore gamer. I've become much more interested in games since I got my PSP, and I suspect that will be the case for a lot of people over the next several months.

When I got my PSP, I asked the clearly hardcore gamer behind the counter what the hottest games were for PSP. He took a quick poll of the other two gamer dudes and they all agreed that Ridge Racer definitely had the best graphics but Wipeout Pure and Lumines were also hot titles.

They are both good games. But if you are just going out to pick up a PSP and don't want to buy both of these games, I give the nod to Wipeout Pure. Here's why:

Both of these games allow you to race against other PSP users in the same room via PSP's wireless capabilities. I think Wipeout Pure might also allow you to compete against other players in remote locations as long as you're all connected to the internet but I haven't been brave enough to check that out yet (I'm not certain about this so if it's an important feature for you, make sure you check it out before buying).

Managed server and hosting provider Liquid Web (liquidweb.com) announced on Tuesday that it is including a free Sony PlayStation Portable device with all managed Professional and Enterprise servers.

Playboy.com today has announced its next step in delivering digital and downloadable beauties with the launch of its newest feature “PlayboyStation Portable.” Given the tremendous popularity of the new Sony PlayStation Portable®, Playboy.com has created a sci-fi themed pictorial of the Cyber Girl of the Year 2005 Amy Sue Cooper that was photographed and formatted specifically for viewing on this device.

This is cool:

Seven Seas Entertainment announced today the release of 155 pages of downloadable manga content specifically converted for optimal viewing on the new Sony PSP.

I hope more people start releasing content like this for the PSP.

Hey, Kevin, you own Nero, right? Check it out: Nero Supports Sony PSP.

“MSN Messenger on the PSP wipout pure haxed browser just point your browser to http://mob.e-messenger.net/mobile/ and log in and walla your there!”

read more | digg story

“Find out how to change the default removable disk icon you see when you connect your PSP to your computer, with an actual icon of the PSP in action. All you need to do is download a 4kb file and extract it into the main directory of your psp, which shouldn’t be a space issue, and your done.”

read more | digg story

In an interesting story out of the Japanese market and posted by GameIndustry.biz, Anime media giant Bandai will ship titles in both DVD and UMD in the same package. This way, you can buy a movie and play it either on your favorite DVD player or on your PSP.

Brand new anime series Eureka 7, which has been created by the team behind the hugely successful RahXephon, will be the first to get the treatment - with a single box housing both UMD and DVD, for slightly more than the price of buying both separately.

At present, the series has only been announced for the Japanese market, and there's been no sign of any North American company following this lead - with most presumably waiting to see how standalone UMD titles perform before considering such bundling deals

The Sony PSP will rock your ass off! I finally picked one up when I got back home! Damn it kills the Nintendo DS over and over! I own them both so all you Nintendo fanboys back the fuck up. I can’t believe how clear the picture is on the display. Nintendo is done for! They can’t compete with this technology. Two little screens doesn’t replace one big kick ass screen. I would take a digital photo of my PSP, but I’m afriad my inferior digital camera will break if it gazes upon my PSP’s greatness.

The folks at the consoul games blog have found out that the PSP is intentionally capped at 2/3 of it's potential.

So what does this mean to PSP owners? Not much at this time but what it could mean is that as battery technology improves game makers can begin increasing and even eliminating the caps allowing for full functionality of the console.

Famitsu pulled a fast one with their 'Control Aibo with PSP' trick, which has just recently revealed (to the English-speaking part of the world anyway) to be a hoax. This is why, ladies and gentlemen, the phrase "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is" has lasted so long.

As weird as that sounds, it just might be what someone said while the PSP was still in development. It has been revealed in a recent copy of Famitsu magazine that certain button combinations, when inputted on a PSP, will cause your Aibo (assuming you actually bought one of the things) to perform tricks. As far as we can tell, this feature is either an unintentional side-effect, or an unannounced feature that Sony has yet to clue us in on. Though it was quite the rage in years past, the popularity of the Aibo on whole has waned significantly, although...

All in all, it's good to the see that the PSP has even more functionality than we had originally hoped. Plus, it's even better to see that old (albeit, robot) dogs can learn new tricks.

More seriously, here are the steps you'll need to go through to get your music to download successful from your Windows PC to your new Sony PSP unit:

Note that the PSP does not support any Windows Media formats i.e WMA & WMV, so any music you have in that format must

be converted to MP3 before copying to your PSP. Fortunately, Sony's very own Image Converter 2.1 can convert all your music with a very simple GUi and will then also manage all the measuring and transfering for you too.

Thanks to PSP owner Tommy Martin for his help

Sweet! Great marketing idea: PSP BLOG

Touted as the Walkman of the 21st Century the PSP not only has about the same power as its non-portable PS2 predecessor, but also Wi-Fi connectivity, video & audio playback capability, and disc & memory stick storage. With all this fronted by a quality 4.3" Wide screen TFT display, you can see why the gaming community were queueing overnight to get them.

Yeah, so what is so interesting about the release of yet another gaming console then? What people have achieved by hacking in to them to do things Sony hadn't expected, thats what. The BBC are running a story "PSP embraced by DIY technicians" highlighting that within a few days PSP hackers were publishing methods for using it for Internet browsing, playing back TV recorded on Tivo, chat clients, e-book reading, etc. Here is just one list of available...

If that has all come to the surface in a couple of weeks, its highly likely that it won't be long before Sony won't have the faintest idea, or control, over what their PSP platform is being used for in the wild. Great for Sony, the more things you can use it for the more they will sell.

Just a couple instantly come to mind. The PSP enabled museum, would be a great place for kids, and adults, to wander around taking in the exhibits with the assistance commentary, explanatory video clips, relevant games. Or how about the PSP enabled Wi-Fi exam revision guide download point in the school library?

As usual today it wasn't so much one article in particular that caught my eye but rather the overlap that existed between several. MIT has gotten serious about building a $100 laptop for kids. But kids don't want laptops, they want video game machines -- especially portable ones.

I just think MIT has its form-factor wrong. The PSP is a great example of a computer that is lightweight, portable, rechargeable, rugged and maybe most importantly of all: engaging. It's not just a video game machine either. With wifi and a web connection, virtually anyone, anywhere can engage. In fact, I think the PSP has another going for it besides having a better form-factor and being a serious computing platform: you don't have to know how to read to use it. I've...

It doesn't take much imagination to imagine the kinds of educational video games that are possible for such a device. There aren't a lot for the PSP just yet and frankly I think we've only begun to take the idea of the educational game to the level it could be taken.

Oh yeah. The PSP is $250. Sell them in bulk units of 1 million (as MIT plans to do with their laptop) with pre-loaded educational tools to governments and educational organizations and you could easily reach the $100 mark. I say give the kids what they want. Give them portable game machines!

The PSP design just oozes power and grace. The design is sleek and it clearly has the mark of the Sony Playstation brand that gamers all over the world has come to love. I was absolutely blown away at how crisp, bright and clear the quite large high-resolution LCD screen is. The unit has a dark glossy feel that puts some of the high tech cell phones to shame. This is not just like a Gameboy only better it is an incredibly powerful hand held Playstation unit that comes close to the PS2 in graphics with wireless multi-player that fits in the palm of your hand with a next generation high resolution LCD screen. It is so very very good and I think it is really worth the higher price tag. The $250 price tag is nothing to scoff at but I think it is a good investment since I am sure that the PSP will be around for at least five years. I was surprised to see the analog stick under the digital pad. I always thought it was a speaker