Making the PSP Better

Welcome to buttonmashing.com, a weblog were we talk about video games. If you're new here or you arrived from a Google search, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and keep up with our site. While you're visiting, why not visit My MiniCity, Joystickland! Thanks for visiting! You can reach the homepage here.

While checking my daily online gaming news with attitude, I came across an interesting announcement made by Sony at this year’s CES: download movie to your PSP using a PS3 and Blu-ray discs. With the advent of Warner Brothers moving exclusively to Blu-ray (bummer, I just bought an HD-DVD player) and this new download ability, Sony seems to be making some right moves for a change. However, could this mean that Sony is looking at the UMD format as a failure?

Predictions (or what Sony should do):

  1. Redesign the PSP once again and remove the UMD all together, and release games on memory sticks. The memory stick could even be used to save game progress. Sell the PSP at the Nintendo DS price point.
  2. Not charge for this service of copying Blu-ray to PSP (some how I think there’s going to be a money making scheme somewhere).
  3. Release more PSOne games on the PlayStation Network - two a week. (Beats is fun for $5, but it’s pretty much all there is.)

If #1 became a possibility, I’d be all over it like ugly on an ape.

If you want to already copy movies to your PSP (or any device for that matter), check out Handbrake.

January 9, 2008 | Filed Under Electronics/Gadgets, PS3, PSP, Sony | 2 Comments 

RIP, iPod Mini

May the most excellent piece of electronic gadgetry I have ever owned Rest In Peace:

RIP, my sweet Mini

It’s dead. I killed it. It’s a shame, too. I had recently purchased a replacement battery (from here) and tried to replace it myself. The battery itself is excellent. I was getting less than three hours on the original battery and decided it was time to replace it. I bought the battery, which came with a great instructional video on how to replace the battery. Everything went swimmingly and I was getting 6+ hours on the new battery. But then the click will started going flakey. So I disassembled the unit and made sure all the connections were good and I think that’s where things went bad. I crimped the little ribbon cable that connects the click wheel to the main board. Only I didn’t realize I had crimped it. So I patched it back up and it worked like a champ for another week or so. Then it went flakey again. It worked intermittently until it finally stopped working all together. I took it apart for the final time and noticed the ribbon cable had a tiny tear and some of the wires were frayed. It was my own dumb fault, crap!

As I said, it’s a shame, because I was really getting into podcasts. I have a whole post of podcast reviews half-done because I never finished listening to the ones sitting on the iPod. I don’t really like to listen to them while I’m at my desk, it was easier to turn them on in the car, while mowing the grass, that sort of thing. So I’m over a month behind on my episodes.

Luckily, I have a replacement on its way. I bartered with my brother-in-law and we’re making a trade — my old Xbox and some games for a new iPod Nano he got for signing up for an account somewhere. His wife is getting one as well, so they decided it was a fair trade. Hopefully it will show up before the end of the week and I’ll be jamming again on another piece of most excellent gadgetry. I can’t wait!

Now I have to figure out what to do with the Mini. It still “works” in that the hard drive is perfectly functional and has a new battery. A replacement click-wheel is $50+ which didn’t make sense to me (I’d rather put those 50 bucks towards a new iPod w/video), so now I have to decide what to do with it. Surely someone on eBay is looking for a iPod to cannibalize!

October 16, 2006 | Filed Under Blogging, Electronics/Gadgets | 1 Comment 

Bad Behavior has blocked 2595 access attempts in the last 7 days.