Cool PSP Sites *Updated Again*

Here's some cool PSP-related sites I've run across recently. Please feel free to comment if I'm left some out.

List updated to include more sites of interest:

• PSP411.com - Great all around source for PSP news
• PSPCMX.com - Comics tailored for viewing on the PSP
• PortaGame.com - Focusing on PSP and DS news
• DSNews.co.uk - DS and PS news
• PSP News - general PSP related news
• SeaMonkey420 - PSP related info
• PSPHome - PSP industry news
• PSP-Vault - Gamesave icons, forums, articles, etc
• PSPCrazy - PSP site with articles, guides, forums, news, etc
• Mobile Deviant - PSP news, reviews, etc
• Wipeout Hack Info - Just what it says
• PSPSite - PSP related news, info, etc
• PSPHacks.net - Info on homebrew coding efforts
• PSPNetwork.net - Comprehensive PSP Info site
• PSPHacker.com - Site dedicated to "real world" software hacks
• PSPMagazines - A great portal for PSP viewable mags
• PSPGarden - Handpicked PSP news updated every 15 minutes
• PSP-Hacks.com - News on PSP homebrew and hacking
• Gamespot PSP - Gamespot's PSP coverage
• PSP IGN - IGN's PSP coverage
• Gamespy's PSP/PS2 - Gamespy's PSP/PS2 coverage
• 1UP's PSP - 1UP's PSP Coverage
• Joystiq's PSP - Joystiq's PSP coverage
• PSP Junkies - General PSP news site
• Sony PSP World - PSP Newsblog

Star Wars: Revelations (Free Movie) for PSP

I've posted on this before, but if you have a PSP, download Star Wars: Revelations specially formatted for your PSP. This fan film is of surprisingly good quality. And it's all legit (Lucas blesses not-for-profit fan films based on his creations). Their main site is here.

CLI Magic: Watch It

Here's a nice brief example of when and how to use the "watch" command from the Linux command line. You can use it to reissue a command ever two seconds. Example uses are watching your network connectivity (via netstat) in an almost-realtime fashion, monitoring the head/tail of a log as it changes, or seeing who is logged into your server. Looks to be a handy "off the beaten path" tool.

Linux PSP Video Transcoding

Here's a tutorial for transcoding PSP videos in Linux. It's nice to see a "functioning" example to base your own custom tweaks from. Also see PSPNuts.com

10 Things To Do With A PSP

Here's a nice summary of 10 Things to do with a PSP (and it doesn't even include playing games! A lot of this is probably review if you own a PSP, but there are some good reference links in his list as well for those of us more familiar with what's available.

PSP Offline Mag

I thought this offline PSP magazine would be pretty lame (it's just a collection of jpegs afterall), but it's pretty well done. If they keep up the quality and maybe add more "pages" to it, it's a fairly painless way to catch up on some PSP news while on the go. Of course with E3 going on, I've been scouring the sites looking for interesting PSP tidbits like crazy so there wasn't a lot in the first edition that I hadn't already read, but the mag does look good, they've picked a decent style. I like the idea of viewing the PSP screenshots right on your PSP screen. And it's pretty small too if you don't already have a larger memory stick duo yet.

Lemmings Lemmings Everywhere

I see that Lemmings for the PSP was announced. Brought back memories of my Amiga days. For those of you that need an immediate Lemmings fix, play the original right now.

Next Generation Game Footage

At first my jaw dropped after seeing Vision Gran Turismo, but then I was floored by Motor Storm. The graphics are just incredible. Photorealistic gaming is coming. That's all I can say.

And from the Microsoft camp, amazing this are coming as well, like
Ghost Recon 3 and Dead or Alive 4. It's a good time to be a gamer.

Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility

Here's how the Xbox 360 will manage full compatibility with original Xbox games, an adapter that clicks onto the bottom of the unit. None of that "only top-selling games" crap. Kudos to the original artist for this image.

Nintendo Revolution to Play All Previous Games

Nintendo has announced that their new machine, the Nintendo Revolution, due next year will allow you to play all previously released Nintendo games. They did not announce whether this would be free or for a fee (we all know which way that's going to go). The better question is will it be a per title or all you can eat payment system. It would sure cut down on people seeking homebrew emulators if they could pay $15/month and play every NES, SNES, Gameboy, GBA, N64 game whenever they wanted. Gamecube discs will also play in the new machine as well. I'm skeptical how they will compare to the other two giants in this battle. As it's shaping up, the gamer will be the winner (maybe along with the credit card companies! Who can only pick ONE system???)

Universal To Release UMD Movies

Universal Studios has announced they will be releasing movies in UMD format starting with Van Helsing and Dawn of the Dead according to an MSNBC article.

Prepare To Be Slammed, Microsoft

Microsoft announced Monday that the Xbox 360 would be backwards compatible. But it's the last sentence in this Reuters story that will fuel the fanboy flames:

Although the Xbox 360 will be backward-compatible, Bach said that it won't necessarily run all of the older Xbox titles but instead, run the "top-selling" games.

If Sony manages PS2/PSOne compatability across the board with the PS3 and Microsoft only manages to salvage the Halo franchise and a few other "top-selling" games, then all hell's going to break loose on the message boards. It's obvious, but I should point out that top-selling does NOT equal good or great. Nice work MS, you'd better have a team working hard and fast to make sure the backwards compatability is as compatible as possible.

Xbox 360 & PS3 Pictures

The net is buzzing with tons of Xbox 360 Pics and now PS3 pics. Not to be outdone, there are some supposedly legit Nintendo Revolution pics circulating too.It's worth it to note the similarities. Both have built in wireless controllers, both seem to use regular USB (where appropriate), both still have wired network jacks, both are extremely powerful in the graphics department. There are some differences. Looking purely at the specs and features, Sony's machine seems the more impressive of the two but Microsoft's Xbox Live is one very organized package that's going to be hard to beat.

Of note, PS3 will play PS2 and PSOne games. It ships with a 160GB HD, has 6 USB ports, accepts three types of memory cards, supports Blu-ray/DVD±R/W, CD-R/RW, the main processor can do over 2 teraflops (about twice what the Xbox 360 is spec'd to do), 256MB system RAM, 256MB GDDR video RAM, and does 1080p (progressive).

Ghost Recon for Xbox 360 ScreensHOTs!

Engadget's got the 411 on leaked Xbox 360 Specs and Pics. Check out the Ghost Recon screenshots, holy crap!

Burnout Legends Gameplay Footage

IGN has an interview with the Burnout Legends team that includes some new gameplay footage too! Enjoy (and drool) like I did.

Xbox 360 Debuts on MTV Tonight

Don't forget that tonight (Thursday, May 12th) at 9:30PM, MTV will be airing an exclusive preview of the next Xbox machine (Xbox 360). Hopefully they'll still have some info that hasn't leaked all over the place to show us or it'll just be a big long commercial where we get to watch celebs playing games we'll have to wait 6 months to play.

Shame on Sony; Microsoft... That's Par

Engadget posted about a funny problem with the fancy new Sony PSP billboard in NYC.

Shame on you Sony for relying on Microsoft technology to show off your impressive little handheld...

Blockbuster Rents PSP Games *UPDATED*

This may be old news to some, but I didn't realize that Blockbuster rents PSP games in their stores. I don't know if their online counterpart does as well, but I thought I'd pass this on. The price is a little steep ($5.99 in my area) but it's definitely better than buying a crappy game for $40-$50. One weird thing is that with their new "no late fees" plan, you can just keep the game and be charged the remainder of the retail price. So I rented Ridge Racer and can just keep it for an additional $34. That's an interesting way to handle it...

UPDATE: Posted on Engadget this morning, it seems the Blockbuster PSP game rentals were a test but now they're going chain wide. The details of their post are different from my local store in that my store charges $5.99/week and $14.99/month for unlimited whereas this post says $6.99/week and $19.99/month.

Burnout Revenge Trailer Released

Not sure if this link will last long, but EA has released a 24MB high resolution trailer for Burnout Revenge (PS2, Xbox, etc). It looks "grittier" than previous versions but did look like a blast. I can't wait. Hopefully Burnout Legends (PSP) will be awesome as well. On an interesting sidenote, Burnout Legends is supposed to support GameShare to allow non-owners to download a taste of the game and reportedly that demo can be saved (for further enticement, I'm sure). I will be buying Legends this fall, I'm confident of that.

Acappella Troupe Sings Nintendo Themes

This is pretty funny. It's a video of a bunch of people singing themes to classic Nintendo games. Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Mortal Kombat, etc. That must've taken quite a while to get right.

Free Frosty's at Wendy's May 13-15

As a thank you for the public for standing with them while they defended their good name, Wendy's is giving away free Junior sized Frosty's all weekend.

Hack Your PSP Game Save Images

Here's a neat tutorial on how to customize the images used for your game saves. As you have undoubtedly noticed, each save game has an icon image and usually a full screen background image when the save game is highlighted (sometimes even sound is present). This tutorial shows you how to tweak those images to whatever you want.

Star Wars: Revelations (Free Movie) for PSP

Panic Struck studios has reformatted their highly acclaimed Star Wars fan film for PSP viewing. Click the link to download.

Logitech PlayGear Pocket PSP Case

I recently picked up a Logitech PlayGear Pocket case for my PSP. While it considerably increases the size of the PSP (not as much as other cases I've seen), it is protected about as securely as I can imagine is possible while still retaining usability of the PSP while it's in the case. With the case closed and latched, you can still use the headphones, skip songs forward/back using the shoulder buttons, charge it, heck - in a pinch you can still listen to the speakers through the case (the speaker holes are covered, but the admittedly mediocre sound of the built in speakers doesn't suffer too much from this). With the case open, you have full access to all the buttons and my hands find the PSP more comfortable to hold while in the PlayGear Pocket. There's a nice side benefit as well. You can print out custom inserts to slide between the PlayGear Pocket's rubber (not sure what the material is) liner and the clear case, in effect skinning the case to whatever custom design you like. And since it's such and easy lo-tech process, you can change your inserts as often as you like. Here are my current inserts:

Gameboy Emulator for PSP (Japanese)

It seems like each new day brings us one step closer to cracking the PSP wide open. Here's a link to a story about a Japanese PSP with 1.00 firmware (US PSPs shipped with 1.5) running a Gameboy emulator. This is going to get better and better. My #1 use for my Xbox is Xbox Media Center. I'm waiting for a homebrew solution for the PSP where I can wirelessly access my media server from anywhere in my home. The PSP has all the hardware you'd need. Once they get Linux ported over to it, it should just be a matter of time before mplayer and samba will make it a reality. Exciting times.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a Quicktime movie and a link to an MP4 movie.

digiKam Offers Adobe Photoshop Album Functionality

Check out digiKam for a free/open-source Adobe Photoshop Album-like way to store/manage your photos.

Great Lumines Strategy Guide

Here's a very in-depth tutorial on Lumines strategies. There's definitely more to getting high scores than just continually plunking down little squares.

VMware 5.0 Review

Here's a decent review of VMware Workstation 5.0.

The Perfect Debian Sarge Setup

Here's a how-to on setting up the perfect Debian Sarge server.

Sony PSP Gets Content from ABC News & AtomFilms

News.com reports that ABC News and AtomFilms are going to deliver free downloadable video content for Sony's new PlayStation Portable. ABC News' first show will be "Ahead of the Curve", a technology show. AtomFilms opened it's new Mobile Movie Theater, currently offering three films for download: "Football", "In God We Trust", and "Rockfish".

Make Rings Out Of Coins

Here's an interesting "how-to" on making a ring from a coin. It seems surprisingly easy.