Joystiq

So the Gizmondo finally saw its official North American release yesterday. It hasn't exactly been a success in the UK, where it was introduced back in March, and if Associated Press writer Matt Slagle's review is any indication it's not going to tear it up over here, either. Slagle doesn't mince words, declaring that even though it specs out nicely (400MHz processor, 2.8-inch LCD, GPRS, and GPS), most of the Gizmondo's 14 launch titles are "uniformly terrible" and its much-touted multimedia features aren't so hot either ("playback stuttered throughout").

Well with development, you spend usually one to two years on a game. But in actuality, you kind of have ideas that are floating around in your head for three, four, even five years before that. In my case, oftentimes I'll just have an object sitting my desk that'll be sitting there for a long time, and I'll kind of interact with it and it will spur ideas. In this case, about four years ago, my family and I bought a dog and started taking care of it and that became the impetus for this project.

Continued →

Links to PSP formatted subway maps for other cities around the world have been dribbling in since Thursday's story about that PSP NYC subway map, so we figured we'd post a few of them up. Let us know if there any others out there and we'll add them to the list.

Read - Barcelona
Read - Berlin
Read - Boston
Read - Chicago
Read - Frankfurt
Read - Hamburg
Read - London
Read - Mexico City
Read - Milan
Read - Moscow
Read - Munich
Read - New York City
Read - Nuremberg
Read - Oslo
Read - Osaka
Read - Paris (Metro + RER)
Read - Rome
Read - Santiago
Read - Stockholm
Read - Stuttgart
Read - Sydney
Read - Tokyo
Read - Washington DC Metro

Dude, if you thought those screenshots of a Pocket PC Phone running a Windows Mobile version of iTunes looked fradulent, you're definitely not going to be feeling these pics of a PSP running iTunes 5.0 that have turned up. It's especially hard to believe that Apple and Sony would get together on this given how much they've bickered over the relatively simple matter of adding Sony artists to the Japanese version of the iTunes Music Store, but stranger things have happened this year, right? Anyway, some person claims to have played with a PSP running a mobile version of iTunes that their "friend" managed to get a copy of. Easily faked, especially since the PSP has a photo viewer (a video clip might have reassured us, but no dice), so we're officially casting suspicion on this one until we can get our hands on a copy of the software.

[Thanks, Julian & Stan]

UPDATE: Yup, just like we thought, confirmed as fake!

We can sort of deal with them region locking the DVD player — we've already got plenty of workarounds for that sort of thing — but it's been confirmed that Microsoft has decided to be predictably lame and region lock their new Xbox 360 console for games, too, just like they did with the original Xbox. We were secretly hoping they'd steal a page from Sony's playbook (they didn't region lock games on the PSP), but no such luck.

Well, you can add HP to the growing number of PC makers that are hooking up with Verizon Wireless to put EV-DO into their laptops (see Lenovo and Dell). They don't get too specific about whether or not we might also see an EV-DO-enabled iPAQ Mobile Messenger, but HP did confirm that they'll introduce a business laptop with integrated EV-DO sometime early next year and that their partnership will most definitely be about bringing "mobile broadband connectivity" to "upcoming HP mobile business devices."

[Thanks, Creanium]

Going out of your way to boast about how hack-proof your next product is going to be is probably the only surefire way to get an army of hackers on your ass, but Xbox engineer Chris Satchell declared in an interview with BBC News that the Xbox 360 is going to have levels of security, "that the hacker community has never seen before." He does concede that "sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security," but he also says that even if someone does crack the Xbox 360 that it "doesn't mean that it will work on somebody else's machine" because of the way it's been designed. Fair enough, but do you really want to inspire someone out there to prove you wrong?

We'd originally heard something or other about Microsoft launching the Xbox 360 on November 4th or maybe November 22nd, but now IGN reports that the next-gen console is all set to drop on November 25th, aka the day after Thanksgiving aka Black Friday aka the busiest shopping day of the year (at least it used to be). The 25th is a little later than Microsoft had originally wanted to intro the 360, but apparently they wanted to give developers a little extra time to finish up their launch titles.

[Thanks, Dave]

SPOnG can be a little irregular in the credibility department, but they're "confirming" with "100% certainty" that Nintendo is finally going to unveil the Revolution's much-speculated-upon controller, as well as show off several different games running on the next-gen console, at next month's Tokyo Games Show.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]

Yep, it's here: we're getting reports from all over that the North American version of the PSP's new 2.0 firmware upgrade has arrived. At least if you're using Network Update, that is. The upgrade is still not available for download via Sony's PlayStation Portable site, but odds are it'll show up there sometime later today.

Update: The firmware upgrade is now available from the Playstation/PSP website.  And, like magic, the webpage looks just like the staging website people found online two days ago, before Sony took it offline.
[Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this]

EBGames.com is taking pre-orders for the Xbox 360, and just like when the PSP came out they're doing their best to gouge all the bleeding edge gamers who want/need to have the console first by forcing you to purchase either a $700 "Ultimate Bundle" that comes with four games and a ton of accessories or a $600 "Core Bundle" which comes with the same four games but fewer accessories. Pre-ordering either the basic $299 console or even the $399 bundle simply isn't an option, at least not at the moment, though it remains to be seen what pre-order options other retailers end up offering.

[Thanks, A.J.]

We know it's been a rough eleven days, but it looks like your wait is almost over — Sony just put up a placeholder site detailing all of the new features of the North American version of the PSP's new 2.0 firmware upgrade. Nothing all that different from the Japanese version (surprise, surprise), but at least now you won't technically be voiding your warranty. The download itself isn't available yet (we just tested and it's still v1.52), at least not as of this writing, but we're guessing that it won't be long now.

[Thanks, SGOlsen]

Update: Ok, so apparently a bunch of people found a login (scea/scea—how original) to the PSP update site, which in return said something to the effect of the update being made available August 24th (i.e. tomorrow). Um, and now the PSP update site appears to have been taken down, removed, or is otherwise missing. Aiight, square one. And thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Well, it's officially August 22nd in every time zone now, which means that Sony didn't make good on its earlier promise to release version 2.0 of the PSP's firmware here in North America during the week of August 15th. We still don't know when they'll get around to it, but check out this incredibly non-committal response reader Mike S. got from Sony when he emailed them asking about the delay:

Hello Mike,

Thank you for writing us.

We do not know the exact date of the 2.0 system update for the PSP(TM) portable entertainment system at this time. We recommend that you continue to visit the link below during the week of August 22, 2005 to check for the latest updates on the PSP System Update page.

http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx?id=softwareupdate

Byron
Multimedia CSR
Sony Computer Entertainment America Consumer Services Department

The funny thing is that it's not like anyone even cares all that much — how many people really bought the PSP expecting a steady stream of firmware upgrades? — it's more that Sony just seems to be needlessly jerking everyone around right now. Besides, if you need a PSP with a web browser that badly, you've probably already installed the Japanese version of the firmware by now.

UPDATE: They're now promising it'll be "available during the week of August 22nd."

Sony already pushed back the North American release of version 2.0 of the PSP's firmware once, but they better get on it if they're planning on making the upgrade magic happen "during the week of August 15th" like they promised — they're seriously starting to run out of time (as of right now PlayStation.com still lists v1.52 for download). We can deal with another delay, but if there is one then it's just best to be upfront about it, you know?

Do we really need to expend much energy hating on the Gizmondo? You know as well as we do that this thing's not going anywhere, but the latest bit of bad news out of Tiger Telematics is that they're delaying the console's North American launch, which was originally set for next week, until sometime in October. Tiger Telematics claims that it's because of a "hardware shortage" and delays in a couple of key titles, but there are plenty of people whispering about how the company is quietly going broke.