My girlfriend and I have finally gotten around to taking some comprehensive pictures and movies of the PSP. This won't be your typical "ok, so here is the screen" type report -- we tried to photograph lesser-known parts of the unit, in an attempt to shed light o­n a few of its features that may not have surfaced yet. It has, after all, been out for more than 2 weeks.

Anyway, I've got 38 images (all available at 1600 x 1200 or above), and 6 videos: a total of about 22MB of PSP image/video content. So click inside for your fair share of highly compressed video and out-of-focus images. Also, for the sake of convenience, I've got a zip file of all media for you at the end of the report. A huge thanks goes to Scott for providing me with the unit in the first place.

Update: I've changed some settings so that people from other sites can't download the files directly. It's not like the images/videos make a whole lot of sense without the explanations anyway.

Relive the grand fighting-game days of yesteryear with the "Neo Geo Stick 2," a Neo Geo controller being introduced to the modern audience by Sega Logistics Service.

And by "modern audience" we mean compatibility with PS2.

Sony will be displaying some sort of the theater system at the 2005 World Exposition to take place in Aichi, Japan. It uses a newly developed technology called "GxL," based o­n "Grading Light Valve" technology. Whatever that means, I know not -- but hopefully after translating this article, I will.

However, the end result of the technology is quite astounding; the ability to project to a screen 10m high by 50m wide. That's meters, not centimeters. 32 feet high by 164 feet long.

It's back, in black! Sony Marketing has added the "MSX-1GS" to the Memory Stick PRO lineup, and will release it o­n January 21st. Estimated price? 24,000 yen.
Wait, didn't we already talk about this? We did, in fact. Sony pushed back the release of these until February, but I guess things are working out after all.
Click the image below for the Japanese press release.

PS2 quality games, MP3 and MPEG-4 playback, with this form factor? It's not about who would want a PSP, it's about who wouldn't want a PSP.

We're about 98% sure the PSP does indeed have support for region-locked games.

Sorry, everyone. Details inside.

It is now well into the 12th in Japan, and the PSP has launched.
Early reports from Impress Watch indicate that lines as long as 1300 people long formed in front of major Tokyo electronics vendors. Scott (sar7501) is in the Osaka area, and he'll be reporting in with his own pictures and media later in the day. Stay tuned!

Every article I've read about the PSP so far has indicated that the PSP will not have region-locked games. But what's this? Scott (sar7501) has taken a picture from the packaging of Namco's "Ridge Racers" software for the PSP, and it clearly depicts what I believe to be a "region" icon. So does the PSP have region-locked games? o­ne of the PSP's primary developers, Mr. Kawanishi, even indicated otherwise in an interview. 

I guess we won't really know until Sony makes an official statement, or the American version of the PSP is released. The icon appears just above the barcode, and has the number "2" in white lettering with an outline of a sphere. Note that Japan's DVD region code is also 2.

See inside for the picture taken by Scott.

Scott sends in this image from his phone. He's currently prowling the streets of Nihonbashi, in Osaka.

Here are the new "industry's highest capacity" storage cells from Sony.

There are appears to be about 6 or 9% capacity improvements, so this isn't exactly something to sneeze about.