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Posted on Nov 16, 2004 - 05:57 AM by sar7501
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Ahead of its impending release on December 12, Sony is displaying the Playstation Portable (PSP) at main railway stations in the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas. I headed down to JR Osaka station on Monday morning to see what all the fuss was about.
Update: Added a couple of short videos of the PSP game demo loop.
I arrived at the designated location at about 9:30am to find ... absolutely nothing. Well, not quite. A couple of impeccably-dressed guards were making sure that a blank section of the wall didn't go anywhere while a group of guys in black jackets with "PSP Staff" emblazoned on the back were in a team huddle off to one side. The action soon picked up, however, with a couple of workmen starting to assemble the PSP display.
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| The PSP display under construction. Wonder where I can get one of those jackets? | |
The display took about 1 hour to put together. By this time, it was about 11am so the morning rush was well and truly over and there weren't many people around. Most passers-by displayed some interest though with a few pausing to take photos with their mobile phones. I wasn't allowed to take any photos of the PSPs until they were secured behind the perspex but I managed to sneak a couple off while the event manager looked the other way. Unfortunately, those big black jackets worn by the event staff got in the way.
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| The finished product. Even the local homeless were interested. | ||
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| Some shots of the PSP in action. | |
A total of four PSP units were on display playing a continuous loop of four games - Ridge Racers and "Kotoba no Pazuru Moji Pittan" (a word puzzle game) from Namco and Hotshots Golf and "Dokodemo Issho" from Sony Computer Entertainment. For the purposes of the display, the PSPs were mains powered. The event manager told me that they had received 60 PSP units the night before for use in the Osaka area displays. I suggested to him that he could have made quite a bit of money auctioning them off on Ebay but he told me he'd rather keep his job.
 "Dokodemo Issho" (25 secs, 0.8MB AVI) |
 "Ridge Racers" (29 secs, 0.9MB AVI) |
| A couple of short videos of the PSP game demo loop (DivX encoded). | |
For anyone in Japan, here is a list of the locations and dates for the PSP display:
| Tokyo area | |
| JR Shinjuku station (station building, north walkway) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| JR Ikebukuro station (station building, "Orange Road") | 15 - 21 Nov |
| JR Tokyo station (station building, north-east walkway) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| JR Shibuya station (north entrance ticket gate, outer walkway) | 17 - 23 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Shinjuku station (Shinjuku underground concourse) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Ginza station (Hibuya line upper concourse) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Shinbashi station (central ticket gate concourse) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Akasaka Mitsuke station (ticket gate, outer walkway) | 17 - 23 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Nihonbashi station (Ginza line, upper Takashimaya connection passage) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Otemachi station (Marunouchi line, inside Sankei entrance ticket gate) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Ikebukuro station (east entrance connection passage) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Tokyo Metro Takadanobaba station (Seibu line connection passage) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Toei Roppongi station (Daimon-bound platform) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Toei Shiodome station (near Caretta Shiodome ticket gate) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Keikyu Yokohama station (beside JR transfer ticket gate) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Odakyu Shinjuku station (Express platform) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Osaka area | |
| JR Osaka station (Sakurabashi underground passage) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| JR Tennoji station (concourse inside central ticket gate) | 15 - 21 Nov |
| Kintestu Namba station (arrivals platform) | 19 - 25 Nov |
| Kintestu Abenohashi staion (arrivals platform) | 19 - 25 Nov |
| Nankai Namba station (2nd floor ticket gate, near station master's office) | 20 - 26 Nov |
| Nagoya area | |
| Meitetsu Shin-Nagoya station (Toyohashi-bound platform) | 16 - 22 Nov |
| Kintestu Nagoya station (front ticket gate concourse) | 16 - 22 Nov |
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