Geek In Me

by Joshua Fruhlinger via engadget.com

If dreams of a possibly redesigned PSP don’t have you waiting, you’re a sucker for the Maden football, and the color blue gets you going, Sony has the package for you. The Madden NFL 09 PSP Entertainment Pack includes a metallic-blue PSP, Madden NFL 09, 1GB Memory Stick Duo, In Just One Play movie on UMD (apparently they’re still pressing movies on UMD), and a voucher for a free download of Beats from the PSN. It runs $199 like other PSP packs, and is available…now. Question is: who’s the Jets’ starting quarterback?

by Andrew Yoon via pspfanboy.com

Take this following story as a lesson on why you should be an educated shopper and do research before you head into a store. A 41 year old Singaporean woman went shopping for a new PSP at a Lucky Plaza shop. She met a courteous and helpful assistant who directed her to a Black PSP system. There are so many capabilities of the PSP, but he explained that with a “software upgrade,” it can do much more, such as surf the Internet and play games for free. Fifteen minutes later, the clerk came back with a massive bill: $3500.

“Nicole,” the unfortunate victim in this scam, refused to buy a system that cost as much as a laptop. However, the clerk said that they had already paid for the “costly” licenses. She asked why other shops only charged a few hundred dollars for the system ($300 according to the original article) and the clerk claimed the licenses “were not original.”

After some haggling, she was able to get the cost down to $2600. Later, her brother informed her that she had essentially been robbed. She went back to the store and demanded a refund — but she agreed to pay $1000. When complaining to the Consumers Association of Singapore, she was denied any further help because she had already agreed to pay the store.

by Donald Melanson via engadget.com

We already knew that Id Software co-founder John Carmack was on board with the iPhone to some extent, but at the now-happening QuakeCon 2008 in Dallas he’s revealed just how impressed with the device he really is. According to Apple Insider, while Carmack admits that graphics memory could be a limiting factor, he describes the phone’s hardware as equivalent to a Dreamcast and almost on par with a PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox. He also sees it as far superior, at least in terms of raw specs, than the two big dedicated handheld consoles out there, saying that is “more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined.” Unfortunately, he didn’t have any actual games to show off, but he did at least confirm that Id has two “tentative titles” in the works, including a “conventional mobile game,” and one that pushes the iPhone’s graphics capabilities.

by Donald Melanson via engadget.com

There may not have been any word of a new PSP out of E3 as some had suspected, but it looks Sony may have a bit of a late surprise for us, at least if these tantalizing pics from PSPChina are to be believed. Apparently, this new PSP-3000 model remains mostly unchanged from the current PSP-2000, with the notable addition of a built-in microphone and a somewhat less notable PlayStation button in place of the usual Home button. As you can see in the picture after the break, the signature steel ring on the back of the PSP also appears to have been trimmed a bit (there’s a pic of the inside of the case as well, for the curious). Not exactly the DS Lite sort of upgrade that’d make everyone ditch their old PSPs to be sure but, as we’ve seen with the PSP-2000, it would be about par for the course for Sony.