psp-3000

If you're thinking about buying a portable gaming system this holiday season, you should definitely listen to this show before making a decision. After a few weeks of teasing you guys about the new PSP Go, we've got all the details from the man who wrote the CNET review himself and now must defend himself from Sony snipers perched across the office. That's right, Jeff Bakalar breaks down all the reasons why the PSP 3000 is still the best Sony portable gaming device. The Go, on the other hand, didn't fare so well in Jeff's eyes. It costs more than the 3000, has a smaller screen, and an awkwardly placed analog stick, and worst of all: you can't play UMD games or use old PSP accessories! On top of all of that, the games take so long to download that you can probably watch a full length movie while you wait. Save your money and buy the best mobile video game console on the market today...the Apple iPhone.

Speaking of products that sound good on paper but don't actually work in real life, a guy in New York discovered something particularly disturbing about his iPhone: the average iPhone drops 30 percent of all calls. After taking his iPhone into an Apple Genius Bar for multiple dropped calls, the Genius informed him that it was indeed dropping 22 percent of outbound calls, which is actually excellent compared with the 30 percent average in New York. Listen in to hear us groan and moan about AT&T service and why Sprint or Verizon might be in my immediate future.

Finally, we want to give a huge thank you to Debbie from Toronto for sending us the image you see at the top of this blog entry. Deb, a long time listener and special guest of The 404 made a custom hockey jersey and goalie mask for her husband to wear during his Sunday game! Now, Wilson and I are the first to admit our zero interest in hockey, but even we can appreciate the time and effort that must have gone into the cutting and application of the logo onto the uniform. Debbie, you rock, and if there's anything we can do (short of flying up to Canada to thank you personally) to repay your kindness, please don't hesitate to let us know. Everyone else should be carefully taking notes from Deb and sprinting to the nearest phone to leave us a voice-mail. You know the number right? 1-866-404-CNET: GET ON IT!

In recent days, a few blogs have picked up on the fact that the battery on Sony's upcoming PSP Go will be sealed into the unit and not be user-replaceable, just as it is on all of Apple's latest portable devices and plenty of other new gadgets. The integrated battery isn't new news. But what caught people's attention was an old quote from John Koller, Sony's director of hardware marketing, which PlayStation Insider recently ripped off from a June Ars Technica article that had Koller explaining that the move to a built-in battery was a … Read more

In recent days, a few blogs have picked up on the fact that the battery on Sony's upcoming PSP Go will be sealed into the unit and not be user-replaceable, just as it is on all of Apple's latest portable devices and plenty of other new gadgets. The integrated battery isn't new news. But what caught people's attention was an old quote from John Koller, Sony's director of hardware marketing, which PlayStation Insider recently ripped off from a June Ars Technica article that had Koller explaining that the move to a built-in battery was a … Read more

This show is getting too many mascots. First Boxxie McFinderberg, then our soon-to-be beta fish, and now a baby panda?! On today's show, we discuss "Terminator Salvation," Asian actors in Pixar's "UP," E3 2009, the Sony PSP Go, and the leaked Palm Pre review on Boy Genius Report.

Sony and Palm are clearly using the same marketing team, because they're both mucking things up with the release of their latest products, the Palm Pre and the recent Sony PSP Go leakage. Jeff and Wilson suspect that they released it early on purpose, but the real story here is how boring it is. None of the internal specs have changed, it's the same screen as the PSP 3000 except for minor upgrades to the onboard memory. The most obvious difference is the sliding keypad. Wilson thinks it's simply useless and just another piece of hardware prone to break over time. Not surprisingly, the dudes think it's a wise move not to include a UMD slot in the new PSP Go. After all, everything is going the way of cloud computing, and you can still put a game on a Sony Memory Stick anyway. Wait a second, what the hell? Why am I even writing about all this gaming garbage? Up until five minutes before the show, I didn't even know what a PSP Go was!

Moving on: if you're running out of toilet paper for the day, print out Boy Genius Report's Palm Pre review and wipe away. BGR unveiled the "world's first review" of the new handheld on Friday, and it also happens to be the "world's most poorly written review" as well. First of all, there's a code of ethics that comes into play here, and BGR still hasn't revealed how or why they decided to leak the review before anyone else. Journalistic integrity, anyone? And come on, dude: if you're going to leak a high-profile review that you know will get a massive amount of hits, maybe spend a tiny bit more time shaping the text. We get that it's a blog, but this review reads like someone wrote it on the pot. Or maybe we're just jealous that we didn't get one first. :)

Finally, thanks again to EVERYONE that submitted logos over the weekend for our contest. It ended today, so don't send any more unless you have one that can seriously compete with the finalists (which we will debut tomorrow). Check out the final submissions below and let us know what you think in the comments. Do you have a favorite out of all of them?

After rumors surfaced last week that the next-generation PSP would do away with the UMD optical drive in favor of direct downloads to flash memory via the PlayStation Network, Eurogamer is reporting something similar and adding a new twist to the mix: the new PSP will have a "sliding screen" and will feature a more compact, narrower design.

In typical fashion, this is all according to an anonymous "development source close to Sony," so take it for what it's worth. Said source claims that the next PSP--it may be called the PSP 4000 rather than … Read more

Ah, it's funny how rumors get started--and this one is truly back-channel if there ever was a back-channel rumor.

Kotaku is reporting that a developer at Acclaim, David Perry, wrote this message on his Facebook and Twitter accounts:

"I hear Sony FINALLY has the PSP 2. And thank goodness, they've removed the stupid battery-sucking UMD disc drive. I'm excited!"

Now that message is rapidly making its way through the blogosphere. Of course, it's unclear what it means exactly. As Kotaku says, no one knows if Perry has seen the new PlayStation Portable or is &… Read more

A couple of years ago I was talking to the folks from Sony's PlayStation division in a hotel suite in Manhattan where they were showing us the second-generation PSP, the PSP-2000. I was telling them all the things I would like to see in the PSP. "This is a mini computer," I said, complimenting them on what a great device it was. But I thought it was being underutilized. "Why don't you open this thing?" I suggested. "Let people develop for it. Screw the UMD. It's got built-in wireless, you should be able download all kinds of games and apps to it. Slap on a detachable BlackBerry-style keyboard and you're good to go."

At the time, Sony's marketing department had seemingly grappled with and settled on selling the PSP as a gaming device first and foremost with a dash of multimedia thrown in for good measure. Even if there was an active homebrew market percolating, there was little beyond the idea that the PSP could play games, music, and movies (from a UMD disc) and surf the Web on a second-rate browser. Yes, the whole PSP "store" concept was in the works, but it seemed to be moving at a glacial pace. VoIP support in the form of a Skype client was also on the table. … Read more

While we just met with Sony Hardware Marketing Director John Koller, he had nothing to say about the possibility of a PSP-4000, let alone a successor to the PSP itself. According to Eurogamer, it's possible he was holding something back.

It seems that a PSP-4000 is very much in the works for 2009. We'd imagine the updated PSP would address the screen interlacing issues that the PSP-3000 suffers from, but we're just speculating. We're still going to chalk these details up as rumors, but it does make sense for a new iteration of the PSP to … Read more

Several organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (aka EFF), sent public letters asking the broadcast networks and YouTube to ease up on the copyright takedown notices. Maybe this campaign season will help shed some light on the issues with the way the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is implemented... as long as it's fixed for all of us and not just politicians. We also get into Sony's new, harsh terms of service, as well as LaLa's move to put your music in the clouds. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Groups asks YouTube, networks to cool … Read more