Sony tries to dispel PSP 3000's battery issues
Last week, GameSpot posted an interview with Sony PlayStation's Director of Hardware Marketing, John Koller, in which he gave us a video tour of the upcoming PSP 3000.
In case you missed the initial announcement, the PSP 3000 isn't all that different from the current "Slim" PSP, the PSP 2000, but it has a built-in mic for Skype calls (and other voice features in games), 480i output for older TVs, and a more vibrant anti-reflective screen that should allow you to view the screen--and play with the device--much better outdoors. However, Koller said in his interview that the jacked-up screen would suck more power than the old screen and thereby reduce battery life by about 20 to 30 minutes.
Well, now Koller's essentially retracted his statement and posted a blog in which he says that with the help of some power-management magic, the two systems' battery lives will be the same.
Here's the full statement:
Hi, everyone, there have been reports about the battery life of the new PSP system (PSP-3000) being shorter than the current model (PSP-2000), following an interview we recently did with Gamespot. I'd like to make a correction and clarify that the new PSP will have equivalent battery life to the current PSP, about 4 to 6 hours for games and about 4 to 5 hours for UMD videos. While the enhanced screen of the new PSP draws a little more power, our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system including its components, so you won't have to worry about losing any time when enjoying the more vibrant visuals displayed with the new PSP.
We hope this clears everything up, and we're certainly excited about letting you all get your hands on the new PSP and checking out the enhanced screen when it hits retail next month.
We assume Sony--and Koller--have got their story straight and the PSP-3000's battery will live happily ever after. But, naturally, we'll give you our test results once we get our review sample in October. Comments?
(Gizmodo via PlayStation.Blog)
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter. 
