Sony just sent out a press release to let everyone know: since the first ever PSP was sold in December of 2004 in Japan, there have been more than 50 million PSP units sold worldwide (that includes all three systems, mind you) since January of 2009.

On the software side of things, there's currently more 2,000 UMD games released in the market, and more than 200 million sell-in units sold worldwide.

If numbers don't impress you, then let's just say that's a lot of frakkin PSPs out there. Let's hope devs pay attention and make more games for the handheld.

Thanks to Anthony Severino for the tip!

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PSP Homebrew - PSPVC v3.50: new Preview and Pause options

February 14, 2009

Nick Swardh sent us an email notifying us of the release of the latest update for his PSPVC PSP homebrew application, version 3.50. Included in this release are improvements, updates, and other stuff.

For one, there's a new subtitle option in town to keep the layout and all colors in style .SSA/ .ASS subtitles intact. And then a preview feature has been added as well, for you to check first the changes you've made before finally converting the video.

If you want to be really hawk-eyed about it, then you can also preview the video during the conversion. There's a "Preview" checkbox by the "Trim" option, through which PSPVC will show the current converted frame. Pause option has been added to the "Process Priority" list now, too, so no need to worry about pausing PSPVC even in the middle of a conversion.

The rest of the changelog are:

Added a "preview" option that displays the current converted videoframe
All settings (Framerate, Resolution, Image Tweaks and Subtitles) can be previewed when using the "Trim" options for instant view of changes in the setup
Added a "Pause Conversion" option to the process priority list
Added a VobSub filter for subtitles (now activated by default)
Added option to show/hide all video settings (now hidden by default)
Easier to select a preset
Improved "Tweak Image" options
Improved extraction of embedded subtitles
Added new presets
Misc improvements
Minor changes in the GUI layout

Download: PSPVC v3.50

Previous PSPVC Release:

PSPVC v3.44 gets FFmpeg update, bugfixes

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Marvelous to bring Nishimura Kyotaro Travel Mystery to PSP

February 14, 2009

Play detective as Nishimura Kyotaro Travel Mystery lands on your Sony handheld. Marvelous Entertainment that the famous Japanese detective novelist Kotaro Nishimura's train-based travel mystery series will be coming out sometime in June later this year.

The PSP story is set in the late summer, where, according to Google Translate, the "bow gun murder" begins to unfold. A victim was found dead, clutching some pictures of women's swimwear (fetishist, perhaps?). This murder was just the start of more mysteries and serial killings to come.

Details are pretty vague at this point, but we do have the screenshots to hopefully tide you over till the next update. We don't even know if it's coming outside Japan, or if it's staying region-exclusive. Anyway we'll be sure to keep you posted.

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New characters, elements revealed in new Disgaea 2 Portable screenshots

February 14, 2009

If you still have any doubts as to the claim of Nippon Ichi that Disgaea 2 Portable "won't disappoint" fans, then this batch of screenshots should sufficiently expel those doubts into permanent silence.

As you will see below, there are lots of new elements included in the game, as well as new characters. Oh, there's also that persistent mysterious screenshot related to Magichange at the end of the pile.

There's a whole bunch of them, so we suggest you start going through them now.

Magichange