News Bot
10-15-2008, 11:00 AM
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/psp-firmware-50.jpg
I’m sitting in class at the moment and I have two hours to wait until my next class; in other words, dear reader, I’m kinda bored. Rather than spend ages perusing Google Reader for my next story to write about (I’ll save that for when I’m home) I figured I’d share some impressions of the PSP’s new firmware version 5.00, since I’ve got the thing in my bag here.
Those impressions, in full, after the jump.
PSP’s new firmware delivers a generous amount of new features which I detailed yesterday (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/10/playstation-firmware-update-extravaganza.html/2), so I’m not going to recite the list again here. I will go through them though, so here goes nothing.
First things first, the XMB has gone under a bit of a change. The “flow” of the menu background has changed from the broad lines of yesteryear into a silky-smooth (and silky-slim) PS3-style animation, and it looks pretty nice. My only complaint is that the “flow” cuts the background into two halves, rendering the bottom half in a lighter color than the top. Since a lot of crucial file information is in the bottom half, printed in white, reading this information can require a lot of squinting to differentiate between the light background and the white text. Save for that, it’s super pretty.
Typing can now*be done on a full-screen QWERTY keyboard rather than using the cellphone-style interface, available through a few taps of Select. Unfortunately, this means you can skip from symbols and numbers on the cellphone keypad to the full QWERTY layout without meaning to and it proved to be initially befuddling for me; why an extra “layout” button couldn’t have been added, as is found on the PS3’s on-screen keyboard, is beyond me.
The big feature of the lot is the portable PlayStation Store, available wherever PC Store access was available before. Once you’ve signed up or signed into your PlayStation Network account (no longer capitalized as PLAYSTATION Network for some reason or another; that’s reinvention for you) you can access your Account Management or hit up the PlayStation Store.
Like PS3’s brand new firmware Account Management is accessed through a set of XMB menus rather than on a*web page,*which makes for a simpler and more aesthetically-pleasing experience. Of course, none of that matters because the Store is what you’ll probably be interested in.
The PSP Store is practically identical to its PS3 cousin in terms of layout, colour scheme, the lot. On the front page you’ll find the usual promotional logos and price tags, with columns down the side allowing you to search an A-Z directory, check out full PSP games and demos, buy PSone classics and download videos, wallpapers and themes. It’s all very slick in its presentation and works just as fast as the PlayStation 3 Store.
In terms of download times, things are understandably a little slower than what you’d expect from a PS3, but they’re not unbearable provided you’re just letting the console download content at home. A 50MB Echochrome demo downloaded in about 8 minutes and installed in another 2; yes, installations are still in and are still as painful as before. C’est la vie.
Aside from the above there’s also a “music sleep timer”, so you can stick on some music to doze off to at night and your console will switch itself off after anything from half an hour to 2 hours, in 30 minute intervals. If you connect a USB cable at any time your PSP will pick it up too, without selecting the USB Connection option in your Settings menu.
All in all, a relatively generous package for the PSP. With the PSP-3000 just hitting shops now, Sony are keen to prove there’s life in the old dog yet.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/TheSarcasticGamer?i=3NM6FR (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/TheSarcasticGamer?a=3NM6FR)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=8QaQM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=8QaQM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=0HPQM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=0HPQM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=XTmum (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=XTmum) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=IpQem (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=IpQem) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=0cKjM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=0cKjM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=8uwvm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=8uwvm) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=fAVTm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=fAVTm) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=qF2bM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=qF2bM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=MPuvM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=MPuvM)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~4/421704479
Click here to view the article. (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~3/421704479/psp-firmware-500-impressions.html)
I’m sitting in class at the moment and I have two hours to wait until my next class; in other words, dear reader, I’m kinda bored. Rather than spend ages perusing Google Reader for my next story to write about (I’ll save that for when I’m home) I figured I’d share some impressions of the PSP’s new firmware version 5.00, since I’ve got the thing in my bag here.
Those impressions, in full, after the jump.
PSP’s new firmware delivers a generous amount of new features which I detailed yesterday (http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2008/10/playstation-firmware-update-extravaganza.html/2), so I’m not going to recite the list again here. I will go through them though, so here goes nothing.
First things first, the XMB has gone under a bit of a change. The “flow” of the menu background has changed from the broad lines of yesteryear into a silky-smooth (and silky-slim) PS3-style animation, and it looks pretty nice. My only complaint is that the “flow” cuts the background into two halves, rendering the bottom half in a lighter color than the top. Since a lot of crucial file information is in the bottom half, printed in white, reading this information can require a lot of squinting to differentiate between the light background and the white text. Save for that, it’s super pretty.
Typing can now*be done on a full-screen QWERTY keyboard rather than using the cellphone-style interface, available through a few taps of Select. Unfortunately, this means you can skip from symbols and numbers on the cellphone keypad to the full QWERTY layout without meaning to and it proved to be initially befuddling for me; why an extra “layout” button couldn’t have been added, as is found on the PS3’s on-screen keyboard, is beyond me.
The big feature of the lot is the portable PlayStation Store, available wherever PC Store access was available before. Once you’ve signed up or signed into your PlayStation Network account (no longer capitalized as PLAYSTATION Network for some reason or another; that’s reinvention for you) you can access your Account Management or hit up the PlayStation Store.
Like PS3’s brand new firmware Account Management is accessed through a set of XMB menus rather than on a*web page,*which makes for a simpler and more aesthetically-pleasing experience. Of course, none of that matters because the Store is what you’ll probably be interested in.
The PSP Store is practically identical to its PS3 cousin in terms of layout, colour scheme, the lot. On the front page you’ll find the usual promotional logos and price tags, with columns down the side allowing you to search an A-Z directory, check out full PSP games and demos, buy PSone classics and download videos, wallpapers and themes. It’s all very slick in its presentation and works just as fast as the PlayStation 3 Store.
In terms of download times, things are understandably a little slower than what you’d expect from a PS3, but they’re not unbearable provided you’re just letting the console download content at home. A 50MB Echochrome demo downloaded in about 8 minutes and installed in another 2; yes, installations are still in and are still as painful as before. C’est la vie.
Aside from the above there’s also a “music sleep timer”, so you can stick on some music to doze off to at night and your console will switch itself off after anything from half an hour to 2 hours, in 30 minute intervals. If you connect a USB cable at any time your PSP will pick it up too, without selecting the USB Connection option in your Settings menu.
All in all, a relatively generous package for the PSP. With the PSP-3000 just hitting shops now, Sony are keen to prove there’s life in the old dog yet.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/TheSarcasticGamer?i=3NM6FR (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/TheSarcasticGamer?a=3NM6FR)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=8QaQM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=8QaQM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=0HPQM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=0HPQM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=XTmum (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=XTmum) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=IpQem (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=IpQem) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=0cKjM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=0cKjM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=8uwvm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=8uwvm) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=fAVTm (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=fAVTm) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=qF2bM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=qF2bM) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?i=MPuvM (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/TheSarcasticGamer?a=MPuvM)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~4/421704479
Click here to view the article. (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheSarcasticGamer/~3/421704479/psp-firmware-500-impressions.html)