E3 2006: PSP Accessories

May 12th, 2006, 01:34 Posted By: wraggster

News Via IGN

<blockquote>At its first E3, the PSP came blazing with some huge accessories: a mic-and-headphones combo, a GPS device, a digital camera, a glass touchpad for text input, and even a number of incredibly desirable limited edition PSPs. The following year, a whole heck of a lot less, with almost everything previously shown not there and in their place just a few standard widgets and gadgets. This year, the pocket doodads are making a comeback, although still not in the kind of force that we'd like to see out of Sony.


Amongst the accessories shown were a PSP Car Adapter (shown with the same full power brick of the PSP AC Adapter, although oddly, it's not break-away at the plug end), the PSP Stamina Pack battery (3.6v, 2200Mhz for extended battery life), the PSP Battery Charger (if you ever want to bother with the PSP's awkward cover to pop the battery out), and a 4GB and 8GB version of the Memory Stick Pro Duo.
Most importantly, the PSP Camera was shown. The camera featured three demos: one standard and untouched video, one called Water Effect where the screen ripples when it sees movement, and one called Kira Kira "Motion Stars" where pink stars popped up all around wherever there was motion. In theory, it should have been cool, and the technology will make possible games like EyeToy: Play on PSP ... that is, if it gets better than what was here. Even in standard mode, the camera had a significant delay to it -- without synched motion, we can't imagine many games being driven by the camera. The PSP camera is also supposed to let players snap digital pictures or record short videos, but the video quality shown was not worth keeping, showing lots of blotchiness in the resolution and not-so-great color depth. Still screens should hopefully be of higher quality, but the tech overall really needs to step up if it's going to be useful.

Meanwhile, missing in action was the GPS device, and we have no idea why. The accessory has been notoriously missing in action throughout the system's lifespan, with hopes brought back up for it after a Japanese press conference that re-announced it and mentioned support in games such as Hot Shots Golf. Where was it? And while we're at it, what about a PSP tilt controller? The PS3 is now all about the accessory, and it'd be incredibly easy to add tilt control features to PSP via USB (even the Game Boy Advance had tilt control, in one form or another.) Not only would it be a great accessory to have, but also a very necessary one -- gamers have been complaining about the lack of a second analog stick on the system since its inception (as well as the limited accuracy of the included analog nub), and an added control system could go a long way in helping the PSP get through some tricky games. That, and it could give the newly-announced Mercury Meltdown what the original at first intended to deliver -- designer Archer Maclean had been playing with tilt technology concepts on PSP before mitigating circumstances made it impossible to release the game with the feature included.

Plus, we'd like to say this really quick: we hate the multi-corded PSP headset, and we'd love to see a redesign or a compact version of it. SCE, Logitech, Mad Catz, Pelican ... anybody who makes gaming accessories, please hear our call.

This isn't the good news we were hoping for in the accessory department for PSP, but stuff is still brewing in the background. (Plus, the games are looking tasty this year, so who's complaining). We'll let you know if we catch any cool add-ons for the system here at the show elsewhere on the floor.</blockquote>

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