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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 least partially designed to thwart pirates.

The PSP Go's embedded battery is a security feature.

(Credit: Levelup.cn)

In case you don't know the history behind PSP piracy, it goes something like this: For the original PSP-1000 and second-generation PSP-2000, Sony had a secret "backdoor" system for resuscitating frozen or "bricked" PSPs. The process involved replacing the common PSP battery with a special one that unlocked the system.

Alas, the secret didn't last long, and hackers developed their own custom battery (the appropriately named Pandora's Battery) and firmware that allowed anyone to run illicit "ripped" versions of UMD games along with home-brew applications and PSOne titles that had been converted to run on the PSP. Those in the home-brew community maintain that they're just interested in fully accessing the products they've purchased and that pirating games isn't what their creative efforts are about. But the offshoot of the whole movement has been a flourishing trade in pirated games.

Read the full column

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.

Someone saw 'Drag Me To Hell' over the weekend...

(Credit: Edward McInTyre/CNET)

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?

Last round of submissions for our 404 logo contest!

Will the new PSP look more like the Mylo?

(Credit: Sony)

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 the PSP 2--will allow you to play games using only the shoulder buttons while the sliding screen is in its closed position. Apparently, most of the controls will be inaccessible when the screen is closed.

The Eurogamer article notes, "The screen is basically the same as the one in the PSP 3000--except it slides."

Personally, I don't care much about playing LocoRoco style games; rather, I'm hoping that underneath that screen there will be a keyboard along the requisite PSP gaming buttons. I've been begging Sony for a couple of years to marry its Mylo Communicator and the PSP into one highly versatile unit, but alas, the chatter doesn't include any talk of a keyboard.

(Source: Eurogamer via Kotaku)

As always, feel free to comment.

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

One of the concept designs for the PSP2.

(Credit: Joe Thomas and Rocco Devenanzio)

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 "just hearing rumors through the development community."

At the same time, it wouldn't be surprising if Sony were to shift away from a cumbersome optical disc system and move completely to flash memory storage (Memory Stick Pro Duo) and digital downloads via the PlayStation Network Store. Kotaku does bring up a good point in wondering how such a device would be backward-compatible (perhaps if you have the UMD, you'd be allowed to download a digital version of the same game?).

While there's been a lot of chatter lately about a totally new PSP system, it's still up in the air whether the next version will be a complete redesign (a true PSP2) or just another another incremental upgrade to something that would be called the PSP-4000 (we're on PSP-3000 right now).

Kotaku and others are pointing to E3 in early June as a moment that would be ripe for a PSP2 announcement--which does seem logical. However, I for one hope it will do a lot more than play games.

As always, feel free to comment.

Update: Kotaku has some new quotes from Perry, who claims the PSP2 is indeed real and could hit this fall. I'm sure Sony isn't all that happy to have a developer leaking unverified information--but we don't mind.

A fan-made mock-up of a PSP2.

(Credit: Kotaku)

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 debut as there have been updates quite steadily for some time now.

The site also claims that PSP2 games are already in development. If this is true, that would mean we could see a new portable console in about 16 months--following conventional development time cycles.

What would you like to see in the new PSP2? Let us know in the comments section. We'd love to see some onboard memory, two analog sticks, and a touch screen.

Thanks to Jake B., a Crave reader who first saw this on Eurogamer.

(Credit: Engadget Japan)

This post was updated Monday at 12:06 p.m. PDT to include SCEA's official statement on the issue.

The PSP 3000 is equipped with an updated screen, which--according to Sony--reduces glare, offers better color reproduction, and reduces pixel ghosting. Now that the models are hitting retail, however, some users are complaining that the supposed improvements are actually a step backward, introducing artifacts in the form of visible scanlines and jaggies on the screen.

When queried on the issue, Sony's Japanese headquarters (SCEI) is said to have replied, "Since this phenomenon is caused by hardware characteristics, there is no plan to fix it with a system software update." (That's as reported on Engadget Japan, and translated by its sister site, Joystiq.)

We've reached out to Sony's U.S. arm, SCEA, who provided us with the following statement:

On some occasions, scan lines may appear on scenes where brightness changes drastically, due to the hardware features of the new LCD device on PSP-3000. Installed with this new LCD device, PSP-3000 offers more natural and vibrant colors on its screen, but the scan lines have come out to be more visible as a result of improving response time to alleviate the afterimages on PSP-3000. Since this is due to hardware specification, there are no plans for a system software update concerning this issue.

Having a PSP 3000 on hand, here's what we'd say: the issue definitely exists, and is more noticeable in scenes with a lot of movement (on games or video playback). Likewise, it's more irksome to some more than others. Still, that's little comfort for someone who's paying between $170 and $200 for what's billed as the latest and greatest PSP system to date.

We're continuing our evaluation of the PSP 3000 with the screen issue in mind, and will update our review accordingly. In the meantime, any interested buyers should hold off on taking the plunge on the PSP 3000--or at least make sure to get a hands-on demo in the store first.

(Source: Engadget Japan via PSP Fanboy via Joystiq)

So you've taken the plunge and purchased the new PSP 3000. It's a great handheld for gaming and media playback, but--just like an iPod or a cell phone--you're gonna need an assortment of accessories to get the most out of it. Here's what we suggest:

(Credit: Sony)

As of Tuesday, the Sony PSP 3000 is officially for sale. The CNET review has been up since late last week, but for those with short attention spans, here's the deal: It's an evolutionary step up from last year's PSP 2000, with a slightly improved screen (better color reproduction, slightly less glare), a built-in microphone (Skype users can now use regular headphones instead of a special headset), and improved video-out support (games can now be displayed on non-HD TVs). Otherwise, it's pretty much the same ol' PSP--which we've always liked.

In other words, it's not a must-have upgrade (unless you're dying for one of those above-mentioned upgrades), but anyone new to the platform will be getting the best PSP to date.

The Sony PSP 3000 Ratchet and Clank Entertainment Pack: this limited-edition $200 bundle includes a silver PSP 3000, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters UMD game, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets UMD movie, 1GB Memory Stick Duo card, and a voucher for Echochrome (a downloadable game available at the online PlayStation Store).