The platform does feature several long-necessary upgrades. A four-core processor, a touch screen, more memory, and a new flash-memory-card delivery format for games that doesn’t cut retailers out of the picture the way the PSP Go did. That was a brain-fart for the business old-guard. Maybe they need to hire some savvy folks with online business degrees.

The inclusion of two joysticks is perhaps the most immediately-welcomed change.

But for me, it’s all a bit too little, too late. The world has kind of moved on. You don’t need online business degrees, though very useful, to figure out that smart phones have replaced this sort of dinosaur.

Sorry, Sony. Fail.

Put a nail in it. You’ll spend your time better in pursuit of ways to buy gold online.

Here’s the real reason, though; between my Kindle 3 and my T-Mobile G2 with Google by HTC Android phone, I have plenty of ways to game without hauling out my old PSP, which is bulky and simply not fun. Why pay even $20 for PSP games when I can hop on my Android market and get a free demo that might set me back $3-$5 if I really like it?

The good news for Sony is that they have seen the writing on the wall; that’s why they’re introducing the new Sony Ericcson Xperia PLAY line of Android-powered gaming cell-phones. It’s the company’s last-ditch attempt to become relevant again in mobile gaming. I have yet to see a unit, but I am given to understand that the Xperia PLAY has the PlayStation Store built in and runs games that are at least as impressive as anything ever released on PSP, if not moreso.

The trouble is that Sony seems intent on keeping their games aimed at the Xperia PLAY phones, rather than open to the entire Android Market as a whole. That’s not a good sign, as only a small segment of that market is going to be willing to jump over to the Xperia PLAY just to get Sony games. And if they don’t scale their prices to become “in line” with the rest of the Android gaming market, which means virtually nothing more than $9.99, Sony’s battle could be lost before they’ve even suited up for battle.

I suspect Sony’s time would be better-spent focusing on the PlayStation 4 than trying to break into the Android Market with overpriced games that only play on their own Android phones.

Trouble is, Item World is almost too addictive, like the appeal of setting money aside in a health savings account. I’ve leveled up weapons for all my party members, but in the process, found even better weapons that also needed leveling up along the way and, well, at what point does one say, “Enough’s enough! Let’s get back to the narrative already!”

Well, umm… I’m not there yet, even though I know I ought to be. After leveling up 2-3 rounds of weapons for my party members, I’m now starting on armor… OY, the endless power-up possibilities… I’ll never get past it to take on another Disgaea title!

Jumping head-first into the 3D bandwagon, Sony has announced it will introduce the first 3D TV sets to the world market in 2010… less than a year from now! Furthermore, they plan to make the PlayStation 3 compatible with the new technology.

Of course, this is a highly risky move by Sony; it took forever for the market to settle on 1080p as the ideal HDTV standard, and it was even messier as Blu-Ray fought and ultimately won out over HD-DVD as the high-def DVD format.

And now, just as the world is slowly catching up to HDTV, Sony wants to make everyone’s set obsolete by introducing high-def 3D televisions? Really? A few Myrtle beach vacation rentals wouldn’t suffice?

Truth is, there are three or four 3D technologies that are at the forefront of technology right now, and all but one of them require special glasses. No word yet on which format Sony will choose for their sets, but it’s certainly anything but a stable 3D format at this point, so if they choose wrong… watch out.

While the PS3 will likely contain support for 3D TVs as promised, I expect that the real full support for HD3DTV won’t come into its own until the introduction of the PS4… which probably won’t emerge until 2014 or so. But count on Sony to make 3D the centerpiece of the PS4, much in the same way HDTV gaming was the centerpiece of the PS3 experience.

We recently bought a Sony Bravia 1080p HDTV to complement our PS3, as well as everything else we own on our entertainment stand. That includes an Xbox 360.

The Xbox 360 was easy to move to 1080p resolution; you just click it in a video preferences box and, if the source goes that high, so does the picture. Simple, right? Don’t even need an HDMI cable for it.

The PS3 wasn’t so easy. We bought an HDMI cable for it, but for some reason our 1080p games like Prince of Persia were displaying in 720p only. It’s like expecting to go to Valley Fair and all you get is a trip to a neighbor’s back yard swing sets.

So I read the Prince of Persia box. The text clarified the matter… kinda. “Full 1080p display,” the box read, “is possible only when your PS3 is connected with an HDMI cable to a display with HDCP.”

What?

Turns out HDCP is some copy-protection scheme for high-def. OK, whatever, but the Bravia should fit that bill, right? Certainly! It’s made by the PS3 makers, after all… Sony!

So I called Sony’s Bravia customer service. They blamed the PS3. I contacted Sony’s PS3 customer service. They tried to blame the Bravia and the HDMI cables. Finally they admitted they weren’t sure why it wasn’t working.

After many hours of email exchanges, a Sony rep’s misunderstanding of my problem gave me the clue to solving it. “Don’t turn off 720p,” he advised, and then went on to some useless blather.

Turn off 720p? I scoured my Cross Media Bar and found the display control for my HDMI cable. Sure enough, if I chose “Custom,” I was able to turn off 720p. I popped in Prince of Persia. Voila! 1080p Prince of Persia began to display flawlessly!

So, now, that’s my adventure in PS3′s maze of “high tech high def” adventures. Now I know that to get 1080p to display… using all Sony equipment, no less… all I need to do is turn off 720p as an option and all those games that are 1080p via HDMI with an HDCP monitor will indeed display in true 1080p glory on my Bravia.

Nice to know.

Of course, if I want to pop in a PS3 game that doesn’t support 1080p, I have to go back in and re-check 720p, or the game will only display 480p.

Yeesh. Ever heard of plug-n-play as a concept, Sony?

Clearly not.

The PSP Go, of course, is like taking the original PSP and putting it on diet pills for about a month. It’s lighter and smaller than the original PSP design, and it finally sheds those awkward UMDs in favor of a bunch of flash memory.

Certainly sounds worthwhile, even as we hope for an even more revolutionized and competitive PSP2; though now, that’s not likely to appear until 2010 at the earliest.

How addictive? Maybe not addictive enough to commemorate on rubber stamps, but certainly the Bowling Alley on Home has become a default destination for me every time I’ve fired up my PS3 for any reason.

Mostly, I think, it’s because of the incredible social aspect; every player is a real, live human being just like you, and the social aspect of getting to know your fellow players overcomes all the deficiencies of the Bowling Alley application.

Sure, there is plenty of room for improvements to be made; Home is rife with largely uncontrolled profanity, hate speech and other nasty talk. It is also wholly unequipped to deal with the near-constant sexual harassment that takes place in Home, especially to its female inhabitants. Frequently, bowling alleys will be filled with as many people getting up on your avatar’s personal space, dancing suggestively and ignoring requests to piss off. There is virtually no intervention by moderators, and no penalty system for acting, frankly, like an ass.

Yet despite all that… the Bowling Alley on Home has seen way more of me than anything else of late… even the excellent Prince of Persia title, which is a lovely game in and of itself.

The intial release is scheduled for this summer, although Sony’s press release did not detail whether all 12 episodes would be released simultaneously, or whether they would arrive over an extended release schedule. One thing’s for sure, though, you won’t be able to get it on your laptop, as the title is a PS3 exclusive.

I was able to put up with, but have never really liked, the Six-Axis controller. Playing a game with it was like trying to breathe wearing too tight a corset. Motion-sensitivity is a nice gimmick, but sacrificing force feedback was not worth the cost. I wish Sony would have patched things up with Immersion long ago, but at least it’s done now and finally here.

The first game I used it on was Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. I’m not much of a racing fan, but I’ve always loved the Gran Turismo series, and this installment is one of the first games to have full DualShock3 support built in.

I noticed that with its return, the force feedback feature is now a bit more sedate and subtle. But that’s fine with me. It’s just good to have my controller shake when it ought to once again.

The design of the iPod Touch is revolutionary and fun, but it reminds me an awful lot of the Nintendo DS. Which raises the question: could videogames merge into the iPod design in a more full-scale way, eventually?

For two generations of hardware now, the same three companies have dominated the platform wars: Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. But such standardization is rarely maintainable. Some new company always comes along and tries their hand at things rather successfully, upsetting who the “big three” are in any given generation.

Sony was that company when they introduced the original PlayStation. Microsoft stepped up when Sega fell off.

Could Apple be the next corporation to wet its toes in the videogame market?

I can imagine it: a handheld system with HD-quality video, touch controls, an FM tuner, the ability to act as a personal organizer, a full-scale MP3 and MP4 player, with wireless internet and an optional phone feature, all in a size that slips into a Blackberry-sized cell phone holster.

The name?

Apple iPlay.

It could happen…

The latest home for the Wild ARMs series is XSeed Games, who have published a PS2-remix of the first Wild ARMs title, Wild ARMs 4 and now the latest installment, Wild ARMs 5.Throughout the series, the core elements have stayed true to its origins; a mixture of wild west and fantasy elements, as well as a distinctive style of turn-based RPG combat.

That is one element that gets a bit of a twist this time out; while the combat is still turn-based, a dash of grid-based tactical RPG style is tossed into the soup for a fresh flavor; for the most part, it works in livening up the works, at least for a while. Some squares on each battle grin are aligned with particular elements and can offer strategic advantages or disadvantages in battle; when multiple party members line up in the same square, devastating combo moves can be opened up, although they reveal themselves over time. The downside is, in a return attack, all party members sharing the same square share damage, meaning that several characters can fall at once instead of separately.

The game was released in a special anniversary package that celebrated the first decade of Wild ARMs games. That packaging includes a collectible art book that series fans ought to find appealing. Yet that’s just the “wrapping paper,” as it were. The package itself is a nice step forward for Wild ARMs as a series, as the game now seems fully at home on the PlayStation 2; unfortunately, it comes to the PS2 table a bit late as most games are now gearing up for their big PS3 premieres, and even Wild ARMs 5, for all it’s merits, trails a bit behind other late PS2 RPG releases like Final Fantasy XII, Rogue Galaxy and others.

Also, the story stretches credulity, even on fantasy terms, in a James Bond, “oh yeah, right, that’d work” fashion. For example, in one early sequence, one of our protagonists is tossed from a train riding a wood rail bridge high atop a desert floor; the hero-tosser also tosses down a hand grenade and we’re supposed to buy that the impact force of the exploding hand grenade below him cushions his fall to the desert floor, allowing him to land unharmed below.

Happens every day. And twice on Sundays. Right?

Still, as good as it is to be sojourning through another tale of the world of Filgaia, the wrinkle lines are definitely beginning to show on the series and its execution. Though the names change over the sequels, the tales remain just a bit too familiar and one gets the sense that it is well past due for the Wild ARMs formula to undergo an extreme makeover. If the series devolves any more, it will be about as fun as a colon cleanse. While the essential idea of a wild West RPG can still hold a lot of appeal, it’s time to mix things up a bit in terms of the style of tale told.

As potentially the final PS2 installment of the series, Wild ARMs 5 will satisfy most series fans, even if it converts no skeptics. However, when the first PS3-era edition of Wild ARMs debuts, I believe it will require more than just prettier graphics to help the series feel fresh and new. In the meantime, this final walk with an old friend through a familiar neighborhood will stir up all he proper sentimental feelings for longtime series fans.

Of course, this year’s version of Sony’s NBA title, NBA 08 for PSP, is hardly a great example of depth and versatility. Even on PS3, the game lacks depth, still neglecting to add a much-needed franchise mode, and this time around axing the “popular for the last couple years” storytelling mode, The Life.

Apparently, Sony’s sports game folks think gamers on the go actually WANT their sports games to lack depth. Why else would they also deny users the ability to increase quarter-length in season mode from four minutes to something a bit beefier, like eight minutes? In fact, most of the user options are well hidden in the game’s interface, and even when you can track it down and set your user file to preferring 8-minute quarters, often when you save that and start a new season mode, you’ll find yourself playing 4-minute quarters anyway, with no way to even change that up.

It’s disappointing in the extreme, especially since Sony’s finally found a way to make their controls for the game on PSP a bit more accessible. Not that you’ll be facing CPU opponents who are all that crafty; the AI in the game is a funky, unpredictable beast that at times will play rock-stupid, letting you go up 20-8 in a half, but then often goes into unstoppable mode in the second half, outscoring you 38-10. There’s just no consistency to it.

Online play is built into the game naturally and looks like it might work well, but like its PS3 cousin, I could not find any opponents online – at all – to play against to more fairly evaluate the online mode.

The graphics in the game are acceptable by PSP sports game standards, but not by any other unit of measurement, and it makes one wish 2K Sports would get off their butts and bring both NBA 2K8 and College Hoops 2K8 onto the PSP. So far, though, no luck on that score.

Another area where the game falls apart is in roster accuracy; I put the PSP version of the game to the same “Minnesota Timberwolves roster accuracy” test that I used on its PS3 big brother. Again, NBA 06 for PSP is an utter failure on roster accuray.

Amazingly enough, the game is even worse than the PS3 version containing all-different roster errors, though the most eggregious is, once again, the complete MIA status of draft pick Corey Brewer. I mean, I can understand missing second-round pick Chris Richard. But Brewer was the seventh overall pick in this year’s NBA draft. How the hell do you screw that up? (And yes, they have the draft accounted for, because Kevin Durant and Greg Oden are in the game.)

Once again, that’s unforgivable.

About the only thing NBA 08 for PSP has going for it is a feature called Block Party, in which you get a ton of mini-games you can play online against human opponents. The company also claims it will offer weekly roster update files, but I already downloaded the first one and it still didn’t correct any of the terrible roster inaccuracies with the Wolves. It just looks like Sony would rather pretend Brewer doesn’t exist that patch him into the game. Whatever.

Also, there may be more mini-games available via download, perhaps as many as one a week, so the novelty of those might help maintain interest over the course of the season.

But I’ll take accurate rosters, deep features and a kickass franchise mode over Block Party any day of the week and twice on Sundays. After making strides the past couple seasons, Sony’s NBA franchise is strictly NBA D-League material.