Sony today announced that it is launching two brand-new PSP colors to the Asian market on January 15. These decidedly gorgeous shades have been named “Radiant Red” and “Vibrant Blue.” Each will carry a standard price tag of $1,380 HKD (US $177).

The kicker? Sony has no plans to release these two beauties outside of Asia at the moment. Who knows, though, perhaps a surprise announcement is in store at this year’s CES. Rolling out new colors would certainly go a long way to help spice up the PSP’s image in North America. After all, not counting bundle packages, we’ve been stuck with the same colors for years. more »

All the recent hard work (which we covered here) by MaTiAz and FreePlay has managed to grab the attention of some of the bigwigs in the PSP Scene. To put it in their words the people at Noobz “saw the bat-signal calling for ’someone who has experience in progressing exploits’ to help out with developing this one further” and they have decided to answer the call.

Well known PSP Development team Noobz has issued a pre-announcement - which they usually avoid but they believe that this event deserves it - stating that they will be joining forces with MaTiAz and FreePlay to bring you PSP lovers an update to their eLoader that will work with the GripShift exploit.

What does this mean for all the PSP-3000 users? Well, unfortunately, since there is no publicly known exploit that grants us kernel access - meaning we can’t access the flash0 - this does not mean that we’ll see a downgrader any time soon. But by developing an eLoader that is compatible with the PSP-3000, you’ll be able to run some homebrew (provided it does not require access to flash0).

Still - as was the case with the discovery of the initial exploit - this, too, is a step in the right direction towards enabling full homebrew capabilities on your PSP-3000s.

Exploit Fever Is Here Again [Noobz.eu]

Homebrew developer Sakya has returned with a long-awaited update to his battery-saving media player LightMP3. Build RC1 aims to extend the capabilities of this already feature-rich application, with the ability to sort Media Library records, support for Unicode characters in filenames, and minor visual tweaks on the interface side. Additionally, various bug fixes have been made.

As usual, the complete changelog can be found past the jump. more »

A couple months ago, reports were circulating around the web that Datel had created a battery that would allow PSP-3000 owners to access service mode. Needless to say, we were skeptical of these claims, especially due to the fact that technical specifications behind the battery were kept secret and no one, not even sites affiliated with Datel, had a hands-on report of said battery months after the initial announcement.

Turns out, our skepticism was warranted. Datel has since issued a stealth update to the product listing page for the PSP Lite Blue Tool. Not only has the product name been changed, but what was once promised is now conspicuously absent. According to the page, this particular battery can only enable service mode on PSP-2000 units - and will function as a normal battery on any PSP-3000.

It is our hope that those who bought into Datel’s marketing scheme and placed pre-orders on this battery will promptly be refunded. Again, this whole ordeal only further exemplifies Datel’s utter dishonesty to consumers.

A few days ago, well known PSP developer MaTiAz discovered a new savegame exploit in the game GripShift on the PSP. Working together with another well known developer named FreePlay, they have managed to put together a Hello World and an SDK so that other developers can write programs specifically made to work with this exploit.

Unfortunately, so far this exploit only works in User Mode - meaning no flash0 access and no downgraders and is limited to the US version of GripShift only. However, on the bright side, this new exploit has been tested and is known to work on the PSP-3000.

For the time being, only specifically developed programs can be run using this exploit but this is a step in the right direction - towards an eloader-like application or, if a kernel exploit is found, towards a downgrader, finally enabling PSP-3000s to be downgraded.

Only time will tell! For the readme, FAQ and downloads, hit the jump.
more »

Resident developer ne0h has released an update to Xplora, a feature packed all-in-one file management utility for the PSP. Notably, build version 1.8 includes a feature-complete text editor, along with the ability to sort homebrew applications and games located on the Memory Stick. Other enhancements consist of support for OGG Vorbis format audio files, and several minor interface tweaks. For the complete changelog, hit the jump. more »

PSP owners will soon have another fine strategy RPG title to add to their ever-growing collection, as Japanese-based developer Nippon Ichi sent out a press release late last week announcing that Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is heading to PSP next year.

An enhanced port of the PS2 original, the portable version of Disgaea 2 will boast extra story content - a rather substantial 30 percent, along with additional characters.

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is slated for a March 26 release in Japan. No word yet on if it’ll make its way stateside, but we’d honestly be surprised if Nippon’s publishing partner NIS America skips on localizing this one, seeing as the franchise as a whole has been quite successful on PSP. It’s Disgaea on the go, after all. What’s not to like?

In an effort to build excitement for the PSP’s 2009 lineup, the folks over at Sony announced today that cutesy platformer LocoRoco 2, the sequel to last year’s colorful PSP hit, will arrive on North American store shelves February 10. Already released in Europe, said sequel brings an assortment of gameplay enhancements to the table, from underwater swimming to local ad-hoc multiplayer connectivity.

Apart from releasing a new trailer, which can be viewed above, SCEA producer Tsubasa Inaba mentions on the official PlayStation Blog that LocoRoco 2 will be released only on UMD. While many of us still prefer boxes copies, it would be nice to see the LocoRoco and their friends make a digital appearance on the PlayStation Store, at least for those who have the Memory Stick space to spare.

With all the Christmas festivities kicking off, Sony decided to release this week’s round of PlayStation Store a couple days earlier than usual. And you’ll be glad they did, as there’s a whole bunch of premium content to choose from, perfect for last-minute holiday shoppers.

In brief, LUMINES Supernova is now available to all PlayStation 3 owners, along with the promised assortment of Metal Gear Solid themed LittleBigPlanet goodies. Additionally, PSN title Jeopardy has received a permanent price drop from $14.99 to $9.99 and as announced earlier today, Suikoden is now up for grabs as a PSOne classic. You can view the full list of offerings past the break. All in all, this is one fantastic update, I know I’ll be picking up Suikoden! more »

Publisher Konami today announced that the first entry in its critically-acclaimed Suikoden RPG franchise will hit PlayStation Network today, to coincide with this week’s store update.

An addition to Sony’s “PSOne Classics” library of titles, Suikoden will carry a price tag of $5.99, standard for the majority of digital PSOne conversions. Quite frankly, its a steal at this price, considering the title has fetched a pretty penny amongst eBay-goers in the past. Full announcement past the break! more »