Looking for a review and background on the Sony PSP? Steve runs through the highlights.
Games developers have included Internet access in their products. The best example of this is Wipeout Pure, which includes a browser, allowing the user to download new game levels and features. Since the game has a browser built-in, it can be reasonable to assume that Sony have actually put all the code to access the Internet in the PSP itself (and made it available to developers).
Some clever users then looked at what the browser was doing (by monitoring the data packets that the PSP was sending across the Internet via their network) and it all looked pretty normal, i.e. it was just a standard browser. In order to access real sites they had to locally pretend to be the Sony servers that the PSP was accessing. This was accomplished by “spoofing” DNS (DNS is the system that maps names to numbers on the Internet, people like using names, but the Internet actually works by numbers i.e. it’s hard to remember something like 127.0.0.1 but easy to remember “localhost” as a name). The spoofing meant that the PSP would no longer go to the games servers to look for content, but rather a local server which could be configured with any content that was so desired, including a text box that allows you to enter another site name.
Rather than everyone set-up spoof servers, some nice people have done it for you, and these then point to a PSP portal which someone has set-up PSP friendly content. You can access the spoof DNS servers by amending your Internet set-up configuration (on the PSP) and leave everything to automatic except for the DNS settings, into which you enter the spoof server settings.
To complement the PSP portal, a PSP irc client has been written. This is actually a script run on a Webserver, but the output fits on the PSP real estate (screen).
There’s probably going to be a lot of copies of Wipeout Pure sold, purely for its browser capabilities.
Once updated versions of the firmware come out, or there are 3rd party applications, the system will have all the features to be a powerful media hub. It supports WiFi, has a decent screen and video capability now, adding other Internet capabilities will just add the finishing touches to a superb product.
Today, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) does not have authority to prohibit companies from making computer and video hardware that doesn’t comply with the Broadcast Flag. This was to come into effect on 1 July, this year.
We equated it to either a door being slammed, or it being politely pushed closed, but left ajar. It appear as if it’s the big slam.
Sony have produced a portable games console which on its own merit is going to sell a lot of units. However it has the possibility of becoming a portable media hub that will give even Microsoft a jolt by driving into their Portable Media Center market.
The system uses Sony’s 1.8″ UMD optical disk which comes in a protective sheath (like a minidisc). They’re small enough so you could easily carry a few around with you (though don’t eject them unless there’s something solid and accessible beneath you as they have a tendency to fly out and disappear somewhere awkward). There’s also a Memory Stick due (32MB supplied) to allow game saves and other features.
The system looks like a USB memory device when attached to a PC (which basically gives access to the Memory Stick) and you can store audio and video on it. Sensibly, Sony support MP3 directly on the PSP, though it will also support ATRACplus encoded music. Interestingly, if someone decides to produce UMD music disks, they only support ATRACplus and linear PCM). Video is H.264/MPEG-4 AVC on the UMD and MPEG-4 SP, AAC on the memory stick.
Once the PSP has real Internet capability it will be a media powerhouse, the screen size is about right for watching movies on the go. You could do this now by converting a current MPEG-2 (DVD) to MPEG-4 and storing it on the memory stick (ignoring all legal ramifications), but in future it’s more than likely you’ll be able to stream movies (or audio) directly to the unit. Sony as a music publisher and movie house, is likely to want to sell its content to a market of portable viewers – it owns both ends of the stick.