Playstation Store revamp starts today.

The above is the new re-designed Playstation Store layout and look. To facilitate the revamp, Sony will not be updating the PSN Store with new content for two weeks with effect from today. Users will still be able to access to existing contents while the revamp goes on.

The new revamped Playstation Store is expected to be go live "mid April" in all regions. The redesign will not affect existing PSN accounts or their virtual wallets.

Metal Gear Solid 1 coming to Japanese PSN on March 21, 2008

Japanese PS3 gamers will be able to get Solid Snake's first adventure come March 21, 2008. Konami will release Metal Gear Solid to Japanese PSN, available for download at 600Yen. For that amount, Japanese PS3 owners can play Solid Snake's very first PS1 outing in their PS3 and PSP, presumably to stoke interest in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 release.

No news for the game to be released in other territories, but keep your fingers crossed!

Stars Wars PSP Pack out in the open, in US today.

Hitting the stores today is the Star Wars Battlefront PSP Bundle, containing a Ceramic White PSP with a black Darth Vader profile at the back, and PSP exclusive Star Wars Battlefront game, all for USD$199 (RM700).

If your are a staunch Star Wars fan and absolutely need to collect all items related to the sci fi universe, you should head for the stores now, if you are staying in the US. Or perhaps you have already pre-order one unit, to which you should be eagerly wait for the delivery guy to ring your bell.

US wont get Slim PSP S-Video cables.

Sony US have announced that they will not be retailing the Slim PSP's S-video cable. They will only sell the standard composite and high def component cables for TV out. Both will retail for USD$19.99.

For US PS3 owners who still prefers and uses S-Video, you can always import the cables as they will work too.

Slim PSP No 1 seller in Japan two weeks in a row.

In the second week running, Sony's new slim PSP-2000 is the top seller in Japan.

The slim PSP have sold a total of 264,000 units during last week, while the previous week recorded a total of 95,487 units. This major upturn can be attributed to the launch of Square Enix's highly anticipated Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and its 77,777 special edition PSPs.

Last week's sales read as such:-

1) Slim PSP - 264,000
2) Nintendo DS Lite - 67,000
3) Wii - 27,000
4) PlayStation 2 - 13,000
5) PlayStation 3 - 11,000
6) Xbox 360 - 1,800

Interesting to note that Wii is still outselling PS3 at 2:1, and that PS2 still outsells PS3, while Xbox360 continues to languish in last place.

Slim PSP-2000 TV-out cables available in SG now.

The new "slim and lite" PSP-2000 have a major upgrade in it, and its not the smaller dimensions. PSP-2000 can display its display into your living room TV, be it flashy new LCD/Plasma flat screen or the older CRT types. All this is achievable using the new TV-out cables.

These cables comes in 2 variation, a component (with 5 out sockets, RGB and stereo audio) and a composite (with 3 out sockets, Yellow for video and stereo audio). It must be noted that if you desire to playing your PSP games on the bigger TV screens, you must get the component cables, as native PSP games displays in 480P (which is not achievable using the composite out cables).

As PSP firmware V3.40 has made the PSP able to output full D1 DVD resolutions (720X480), it should be able to display UMD movies to your TV with clear images.

The cables are hard to find, but available in select stores in Singapore, retailing at SG45.00 (RM104).

PSP Firmware updated to V3.71, 2 days after V3.70.

Sony made available update V3.71 for the PSP, shortly after V3.70 was made available. Sony claims that V3.71 adds "new, user-requested features' but internet reports of it doing not that much.

I would presume that Sony detected a security flaw, and fixed it really quickly with the 0.01 update just two days after V3.70.

PSP Firmware updated to V3.70

Sony have released a firmware update to Version 3.70 for the PSP and PSP-2000 Slim. Some functionality have been added, such as:-

• You can now set custom themes in [Theme Settings] under [Settings].
• Support has been added for assigning buttons in [Remote Play].
• A scene search feature has been added under [Video].
• Sequential playback is now supported under [Video].
• Simultaneous playback of content under [Music] and [Photo] is now supported.

Further functionality were added to the PSP-2000, mainly dealing with viewing movies from the PSP via the TV.

Unbrick your PSP with Pandora's Battery.

There is a new PSP unbricker, named Pandora's Battery. It works as follows:-

• You run a program on a homebrew-enabled PSP that will convert a standard PSP battery into a jigkick battery. Note that you can't then use that battery normally - so you should use a spare one.
• You run a program to generate the unbricker memory stick image, built from the v1.5 update EBOOT (note that this, and the custom IPL, means the release is completely free of Sony copyright materials).
• You run some programs on a PC to install the image to your memory stick.

Upon which you will have a battery and memory card combo that works like a jigkick battery combo - you can insert them into any bricked PSP and it will re-install firmware v1.5 into it, effectively unbricking it. Seems it even works for future firmware versions.

To find the instructions, donation methods (if you do use it) and do it on your own risk, click here.

E3: PSP re-designed

During Sony's E3 press conference, a new, re-designed PSP was announced.

The new PSP will be 19% slimmer, weigh 33% lighter (190 grams by my estimate), batteries lasts longer (by how much it was not mentioned), and costs the same USD159 (after Aprils price revission). It also will have the ability to output high-quality video, to connect to a TV and thus share their photos and videos via the specific "Display" button on the PSP face. This mean that you can now use the PSP as a portable UMD/MP4 video player and photo display unit.

The new slimmer PSP will be available in September in 2 color versions, Piano Black and Ice Silver. Two new bundle packs were announced too: A PSP Entertainment Pack will include the Ice Silver version, Daxter, the UMD Family Guy collection, a 1GB memory stick, retails for USD199. Star Wars: Battlefront PSP Pack will include the new Battlefront game, Renegade Squadron, and the Ice PSP with Darth Vader printed on the back. And this Star Wars was introduced by Chewbacca on stage, woo hoo...