I am sure a lot of you have been waiting for this day to come, when Sony finally announced the next generation Playstation Portable, considering that their yet to be released Xperia Play device (or Playstation Phone) was already making waves in both the mobile phone and gaming industry, sporting Android under the hood and promising you mobile gaming goodness the Sony way.

Now, here we have the much anticipated upgrade to the Playstation Portable line. The Playstation Portable 2 (codenamed NGP). And honestly, I am quite excited with what I see here and in the next series of press shots that I’ll be including.

More after the jump. Continue Reading

I only caught wind of this device because I have started frequenting the Razer website ever since I acquired my Orochi mouse. Although I’ve visited the site several times prior to getting the mouse, I never really took notice of this particular gadget on the website although it does say that this was part of the CES 2011 so I am assuming that it was a recent addition to the website.

The device I am talking about is the Razer Switchblade. It is basically a portable device allowing you to play your favorite PC games on the go. What makes things interesting and amazing about this device is the keyboard. The keyboard, Razer says, adapts to any game you run on the Switchblade, whether it be a MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online), RTS (Real-Time Strategy), FPS (First Person Shooter) or Casual game. Continue Reading

For those who follow me on Twitter, last week, I made a call for what Nintendo DS games would be ideal to play. This was because last weekend, I went to Greenhills to get me and Chil a Nintendo DS Lite each.

Chil got the black one, I got the white one. Most if not all of my gadgets are black. My cameras are black. My mobile phones are both black. My PSP is black. My iPod Touch is entirely black but neither is it white. So for all intents and purposes, my DS Lite is my first and only gadget that’s white. And I named it Wadsworth, Wads for short. (Yes, I’m one of those people who give names to their property)

So mine is white, it’s got a plexiglass shell and then it has that additional hard case for added protection. I added that Goodsmile Racing sticker so now everytime I look at my DS Lite, it’s like I’m looking at the Tokyo Dancing Trooper’s chest (short of a Twitter sticker of course).

The interface was originally a Super Mario Bros design but I wasn’t exactly fond of it so after checking and updating my kernel, I went and edited my kernel’s skin. And what did I come up with?

I’m quite fond of my logo.

[polldaddy poll=2234791]

My currently-owned gadget names:

• Sony PSP – Saunders
• Canon 400D – Domovoi
• Lumix LX3 – Bruno (named by Chil)
• SE W960 – Godfrey
• Nokia 2700 – Stokes
• iPod Touch – Winslow
• Nintendo DS Lite – Wadsworth

So my armory when I travele from day to day just got heavier with Wadsworth being added to the crowd. Most if not all my gadget names are butler names.

It’s been a long time since I last wrote about the PSP or my piano black PSP for that matter. I think it’s time to brush off the dust and talk about it again, particularly the news that DarK_AleX has recently released the latest custom firmware for the PSP: 5.00 M33. Basically, the 5.00 official firmware adds PSN store access through your PSP, nothing that big or special in my opinion although it’s good to see a newer firmware version coming out since DarK_AleX had skipped two official firmware updates: 4.03 and 4.05. He didn’t release M33 versions of these and just stuck with 4.01 M33-2 until he finally decided to come out with 5.00.

There are still some bugs being reported especially for those who use the PSPs to play PSX games. they were getting some sort of kernel error. The details can be found here.

I currently have 4.01 M33-2 on my PSP and have never used any other custom firmware out there. The suffix on my firmware version has always been M33. I never touched the other CFW versions that released 4.03 and 4.05. For me, if DAX felt that it’s not worth releasing an M33 version for the 4.03 and 4.05 firmwares, then I’m with it.

For those who intend to update their PSPs, here’s a small checklist:

1. Make sure your PSP is running on CUSTOM FIRMWARE. The primary indicator for this is that you see “M33″ at the end of the firmware number when you look at your firmware version in your PSP’s system information.
2. Make sure you’re running 4.01 M33 or M33-2 on your PSP because I noticed that it was indicated in the QJ article that this upgrades 4.01 to 5.00 so I’m not entirely sure if you can convert from 3.71 straight to 5.00. So to be safe, upgrade to 4.01 first before upgrading to 5.00. If anyone out there has jumped from 3.71 M33 to 5.00 M33, then that person can say so in his/her blog. For me, better safe than bricked is my policy.
3. If you’re using Phat and you’re running on 1.50 kernel, switch back to 4.01 kernel before you upgrade.
   
4. Download the 5.00 M33 upgrade and paste the UPDATE folder in PSP\GAME.
5. Run the update. Make sure you have over 78% of battery life and that your PSP charger is plugged in. Wouldn’t want your PSP to die out while you’re updating. But then, the program won’t allow you to update if you have less than 78% battery life anyways. DAX was kind enough to make it idiot-proof.

So there. If you’ve done this yourself before, then you shouldn’t have any problems. As for me, I’m sticking to 4.01 M33-2 for now until I’m confident that 5.00 M33 is already stable. Probably if DAX rolls out an M33-2, then I’d be keen towards upgrading. But for now, I’m happy with my current firmware version.

Hardly see any changes. But Piano Black is still sexy as ever.

So Consolespot.net has put up articles on the announcement of the PSP-3000 and Famitsu has even gone as far as comparing the PSP-3000 with the PSP Slim. So what’s to expect from this new PSP? Is it really any different than the previous ones? Actually not much, but for someone like me who carries around his PSP as a multimedia player, I’m liking the changes A LOT.

Let’s start with the minor cosmetic changes, shall we? The PSP-3000 sports a redesigned Home button as well as the Start and Select buttons. The Sony name moves from the upper right to the upper left and the PSP logo disappears. At the back, the ring around the PSP name is thinner than its predecessor. But pretty much Sony claims that the 3000 still weighs and feels the same as the 2000.

Mmmmm...strawberries!

Not much on that department, neh? So why bother with a new release? I’m not really sure if there’s any other new stuff like motherboard or RAM or whatnot but what’s definitely known is shown in the picture above.

The PSP on top is the 2000 while the one at the bottom is the spankin’ new PSP-3000. Notice any difference? Yes, the new PSP-3000 comes with a better LCD display. No more squinting when you’re playing your PSP udner direct sunlight. It has a wider gamut range and its reaction time is claimed to be far better than that of the PSP-2000.

Like I said, I like it since I carry my PSP around to watch movies and anime episodes on the go.

The PSP-3000 is supposed to be released this October of this year and comes in three colors: Black, White ang Silver. It will be released as bundles that come in at 199 Euro or 199 USD depending on where you live and a Basic Pack will be released…at a cheaper price, of course.

Now the question is this: recently there have been claims and problems with regards to pandorizing newer PSP motherboards. Would this new PSP have the same problem or would it still be just as easy to convert the PSP-3000 from OFW to CFW as the Slim and the Phat?

I guess no one will know until someone tries, right?

This is old, old, old news for those who are active in the PSP custom firmware/homebrew scene. Dark~AleX released his 4.01 M33 custom firmware back in June. It also appears to herald the arrival of a plugin that DAX had been working on for some time which is the savestate plugin. It’s not exactly the same as the save states that you have in your handheld emulators that have in your desktop computers.

What DAX did was intercept the data that the PSP generates when it goes into sleep mode. Notice that if you turn off (not completely shut down) your PSP in the middle of a game, when you go back, it technically is still in that same state when you wake it up again. Basically, what DAX’s plugin does is get all that data, dump it somewhere in your memory card and then when you want to go back to that state, it fools your PSP into thinking it’s coming out of sleep mode and pushes that save state data as the current active data for your PSP. Everything else that’s technical about that, I don’t know anymore but it does sound awesome and it opens up doors for other homebrew developers to make things faster or more efficient for this plugin.

So will I convert to 4.01 M33 anytime soon? Not really. At the moment, I’m enjoying the Llewelyndows theme that my 3.90 M33-4 firmware PSP has and I don’t think there has been a conversion released out in Consolespot.net. And right now, 4.01 M33 doesn’t really bring anything new in the table form me so the urgency to switch isn’t there. That is probably until my curiosity gets the better of me and I convert to 4.01. But for the moment, nah.

But for those interested, you can find the latest version of the 4.01 M33 firmware here. It’s at 4.01 M33-2, methinks. Or better yet, get it straight from the man himself, Dark~AleX~! Here’s his site.

Doof! Look at all that accumulated dust! I haven’t touched this blog in quite some time and a lot of interesting Gundam news has come and gone but I’m sure that didn’t stop you guys from hunting for it in other blogs.

So anyways, I’m here to talk about what Hori not-so-recently released for those PSP users out there: the SRW Crystal Case. Well, it’s not just the crystal case. It also comes with a silver bag which I’m not exactly quite fond of. The crystal case on the other hand is really nice. It’s got all these panel lines and text printed on the crystal case and makes your PSP look more space-age. The downside to it though is that it looks best on a white PSP and practically looks like rubbish when used in other colors.

Nice product nonetheless. But I’m more excited about a Gundam whose pictures have just been posted on Amiami.com recently.

Sony is releasing a Madden special PSP pack which contains a blue PSP. It’s like the red PSP’s horny nerd brother because it’s “blue”. Hyuk hyuk.

Kidding aside, I just wished they released this as just a simple PSP unit rather than making it a game pack. I’m not a Madden fan but I wouldn’t mind owning a blue PSP. So the games would be utterly useless in my possession and I know no one who would be willing to buy the games off of me.

I’ve finally finished flOw. It’s not large feat, actually. It’s easy to finish this game. It’s just that I rarely find time to play a game non-stop and finish it so this was special for me. Plus, I had problems with the online flash version of flOw.

This game gives you access to several creatures. I now have access to all of them after I finished the game. Note: I forgot to include one of the creatures but I’ll talk about it later.

The first creature is the basic creature that is snakelike in form and its ability is to just speed up. Nothing special but it helps you escape some of your larger enemies fast. The second creature is a round creature that spins its, what I like to call, life orbs around. What it does is that it attracts the smaller organisms when it spins its life orbs making it easy to consume them. The third one is the one that I forgot to take a screenshot of. It’s a fish-looking creature. The tail contains its weapon: dash bursts. Each dash burst that it uses shortens its tail and eating smaller organisms replenishes the number of bursts that it can use. The fourth is my second favorite. It’s also a snakelike creature that has the ability to paralyze its opponents and then consume the enemy’s life orbs without retailiation. But my favorite is the last creature that you can get and use. It’s ability is to jump/dash straight at an enemy’s life orb and multiple presses of the button triggers multiple dashes allowing to quickly dispatch the enemy.

It’s a fun game.

This game is to be released for the PS2 so SRW fans out there, don’t give up on your PS2 just yet. Here’s the currently-known cast for this series:

This week’s Famitsu announces Super Robot Wars Z for the PS2. The series list:
Orguss
Gravion
Gravion Zwei
Aquarion
Gundam SEED Destiny
Eureka Seven
Overman King Gainer
Baldios
Zeta Gundam movies
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger

Images and news from SRWHotnews and Gunota Headlines.