Handheld gamers across the pond will have to hold out a few months longer than anticipated for the PlayStation Portable’s European release. Sony says it is delaying the European launch of its hotly anticipated gaming device by several months to ensure it can supply enough units for its U.S. launch. The PSP, a sleek multimedia gadget that Sony hopes will be its first big success in consumer electronics since the PlayStation 2 five years ago, is already on sale in Japan and will hit U.S. stores on March 24. Sony’s factories have been unable to churn out enough PSPs to launch them simultaneously...

First-party titles to be playable over the ‘net using wireless hotspots Sony has revealed that five of its first-party PSP titles will feature online play from the launch of the system in the USA, with the games set to be playable both over local wireless connections and across the internet. ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin’ Trails and Twisted Metal: Head-On are joined by sports titles MLB, NBA and Gretzky NHL from Sony’s 989 Studios in the roster of early online-enabled games. The games will all feature standard wireless play between consoles in the same area, as already seen in many...

BetaPlayer v0.5 has been released. BP is one of the most advanced Open Source Media Players for Mobile Devices available today. [ article ] – Bug Reports here: http://corecodec.org/tracker/?atid=117&group_id=9&func=browse – Suggest features here: http://corecodec.org/tracker/?atid=120&group_id=9&func=browse - Please uninstall previous version before updating Download it here: http://betaplayer.corecodec.org I must say that this is probably the best multimedia player for pocket pc’s around! I give it 5/5 and highly recommend it to anyone using a Pocket...

Retail sales of video games tallied just over $9.9 billion in 2004, according to figures released today by industry research firm the NPD Group. That figure, which includes all portable and console hardware, software, and accessories, represents a decline of less than 1 percent when compared with $10 billion in 2003. While dollar sales were down, overall, unit sales were up 4 percent, said the research group “Sales remained strong, thanks in large part to the console software, portable game software, and portable game hardware categories, which saw dollar sales percentage increases of 7 percent,...

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation Portable (PSP) updater that leaked onto the web this past weekend is genuine. However, it publicly warned owners of the handheld console not to run the software, which it said will “cause the PSP hardware to stop operating”. The updater is configured to install a number of bug fixes, along with a text-to-speech utility, a calculator, web browser, email application and – most interesting of all – a word processor and spreadsheet tool. However, the update installer as posted does not yet contain all – or indeed any – of these...

Neowin.net reports : Sony may be preparing to release its first PlayStation Portable (PSP) update, if a file that briefly appeared on the web this weekend is what it purports to be: a leaked copy of an early version of the update code. Whatever its provenance, the software certainly includes some interesting features. In addition to the usual bug fixes, the update is said to add not only a web browser and an email program, but a word processor and a spreadsheet. At this stage, the translations from the original Japanese exploration of the alleged PSP update file doesn’t make it clear whether...

Chicago (IL) – Even a ubiquitous presence of the term ‘mobility computing’ hasn’t changed the fact that mobility remains a compromise. Notebooks are still clunky and PDAs or smartphones lack screen size and processing power. A startup believes it can provide true mobility by with a cellphone-sized device that integrates your complete desktop PC and can be used wherever you go. Almost. Let’s face it: Mobile computing is not as convenient as marketing campaigns of PC, PDA and phone makers suggest. If you need a computing device on the road, your decision always circles...

Nintendo might have had a big handheld holiday with their DS, but Sony has started the New Year off with a bang by unveiling a ton of new info for their upcoming PSP system at the Consumer Electronics Show not one week into 2005 boasting processing power that rivals the PS2 and a set of features that makes your new cell phone look like a Fisher-Price reject, the PSP is obviously packing a lot of punch in its slender frame. But all the spec lists in the world don’t tell the whole story, which I will attempt to do in one simple phrase: The screen rules. I’m not kidding. The 4.3 inch LCD...