The PlayStation Portable is probably one the best hand held gaming console on the market -if not THE best-. Given that Sony is always making new and better versions of each of there consoles: Ps2, Ps3, and the PSP there is no surprise that almost everyone has some sort of Sony product ala TV, Sounds System, Gaming Platforms, etc. They have also always been true to their “10 Year Life Cycle”. Within those years there were always new revisions and new “upgrades” to the existing platforms. The PSP has received several revisions the newest of which the PSP Go is going to sell like hot cakes.

The big brother, PS3 is going to have its 3rd birthday shortly and Sony has just confirmed the rumors of the PS3 Slim at their GamesCom conference in Germany. It will retail for $299 and Sony is dropping the price of the existing consoles to the same. Ps3 Slim is set to be released this September 1st. Along with the new hardware update comes the new software update. Personally the 3.0 firmware feels more like a 2.9. Nothing truly new just a few aesthetics. Every section is going to have its own link to its given media. The Game section for example will have a link to Little Big Planet’s homepage say for some new news and then maybe another thumbnail is featuring some new content so it will have a link to the PlayStation Store where you can purchase new add-ons. The Video, Music, and Online Section will have similar features. The ticker at the top left hand of the screen has been modified slightly. Now it will show a picture of your PSN ID, if you have mail, and how many friends are online, along with the old like the news ticker and time. Last but not least there is a new theme option for Devs. They can have fully animated backgrounds but the core XMB is still just the same. When we can change that to say the Xbox dashboard theme or something completely customizable that will be something to brag about. And thats it, no Party chat, text chat, or any other majorly important improvements. I am still waiting to take in-game screens Sony. Last but not least some new footage of the Motion Controller in action, no dates announced just so juicey footage for us to hunger over.

Sony’s promise of a 10 year life cycle is tremendously heroic and makes them a class act. Whether or not we want to wait for the cycle to finish is another story. Considering that the PSP first released in 2004 to Japan and then March and September 2005 else where my estimate is that the PlayStation Portable 2 -a completely new PSP- is going to be released by 2015 obviously earlier with all this complaining about dual analogue sticks. Considering this a hand held product and technology will evolve far beyond the capabilities of the machines as of today they may want to start a new promise pretty soon. I don’t think we will mind paying for games on two different hand helds, given that we are still alive and well come 2012.