Remember VidZone? You probably don’t, seeing as we haven’t heard anything about the music video service for the PS3 since it was announced at the Leipzig Game Convention last year. It’s not dead, though. The service is ready to go live this summer in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Australia.

VidZone will be a completely free, though ad-supported, way of watching music videos on demand. It will allow you to create playlists of streaming videos either from your PS3 itself or from your PSP via remote play. The service will feature “thousands of music videos and live concert videos, as well as behind the scenes, interviews and making of footage.”

There’s no word on how often the service will be updated, but we would hope that more content is added on a fairly regular basis. VidZone is Europe and Australia exclusive, with seemingly no plans to bring it to the US.

Source: Sony Fanboy

This Thursday, May 6, is the release date for the digital release of Patapon 2. It’s also the day on which you can show off your love for Patapon clothing within Home. They’ll be available from the Threads store in the mall, free or not, we don’t know yet. Acting as walking billboards is one thing, without having to pay for the pleasure.

Check it out this Thursday on your local PS Home store.

Source: PSP Fanboy

The 3000 series is finally feeling the love. It wasn’t too long ago that “Hello World” was successfully exploited onto the 3000. Now just a short time later, the third full generation of the PSP is headed towards a wonderful hombrew-enabled future. ChickHEN is here for the PSP 3000.

Developer, Davee, of Team Typhoon, has released the exploit and directions for this seemingly easy-to-do hack. The steps and a handy-dandy download link are provided below for those of you who thought that you were doomed on the “Unhackable T88v3 and TA-090 motherboards”.

Before I roll out with the good stuff, however, it’s important to make known a few of the downsides of this Homebrew Enabler. ChickHEN currently cannot make .ISO or .CSO backups run. This applies for Playstation 1 titles too. You will also not be given access to flash memory either, so custom XMB’s are not going to be readily available (yet). Plugins also won’t be able to be loaded as a result of this, obviously, and that goes for custom firmware too. As of yet, no custom firmware is released for the PSP 3000, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. With breakthroughs like ChickHEN, developers are questioning just exactly how far they can go.

To run ChickHEN, follow these steps:

1. First off use the supplied TIFF image and place it in the PSP>PHOTO Directory.
2. Copy h.bin over to the MS ROOT and safely remove device.
3. Scroll over to the PHOTO icon on the XMB and click the ChickHEN folder and wait.
4. If all goes well the screen should blank out and flash green showing that the HEN is loaded and all is well.
5. Wait for your PSP to reboot and check your PSP’s system software. It should now display: “5.03 ChickHEN”.
6. Scroll on over to GAME and enjoy some Homebrew!

Interested in downloading this? The link is below! Enjoy!

[_DOWNLOAD:_ChickHEN_]                                                                        [_SOURCE_]

Q. What is the PSP missing now? No, not a second analog nub or built in webcam at this point. It’s missing a mouse, of course!

PSP hacker TokyoDrift found a way to map the handheld’s buttons to a mouse, using nothing more than a PS2 mouse, an ATMEL ATmega8 chip-sporting breadboard, and a massive brain. PSP users looking to do this themselves can find all of the steps at the pspfreak.de forums.

NOTE: Of course, it goes without saying that you should probably be somewhat comfortable with homebrew before trying this yourself.

Source: Engadget

Capcom is going to make its PlayStation Network presence a lot more robust as it begins releasing ports of PS1 titles and providing downloadable versions of previous PSP titles throughout the year. The company spoke with Capcom’s Chris Kramer, who let us know that the company would be listening to what the community wants and figuring out internally what titles to release but don’t expect any of them to involve licensing shenanigans along the lines of Marvel vs. Capcom.

“We’ll definitely be looking at a lot of titles that have things like Street Fighter and Resident Evil in the title,” Kramer said. “We’re thinking about putting together a long list of the titles we’re looking at, and then releasing it on Capcom Unity and having people vote on them. Ultimately we’re looking at bringing between 20 and 40 titles to the PSN over the next several months.“

Source: PSP Fanboy

The ESRB rating site has gone on rating a few more of the upcoming PS1 releases for the PSN Store. Spyro 2 and Spyro: Year Of The Dragon are both listed as being approved for the PlayStation 3 and PSP.

With titles like WipEout, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3, not having been listed for months and, in some cases, over a year, we’re not expecting to see these Spyro games soon. If at all. The only thing is that when they rate the games, it sits there and waits. I am not quiet to sure about this one being anytime soon though, but would be a nic addition to the PS games on the PSN.

It is nice to see it being rated though. What do you guys think? Would you like this game to come out any time soon?

Source: PSP Fanboy

Rumor has it that:

“Rumors of a major PSP hardware redesign have repeatedly bubbled to the surface over the last several months some claiming the removal of the system’s UMD disc drive, and others pointing to a second analog stick and sliding screen. According to sources directly involved with the new system, we have learned that Sony will quell those rumors by unveiling their revamped PSP at this year’s E3 conference in June.

Between the redesign and a strong lineup of recently announced PSP titles (see: Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny), Sony is clearly attempting to assert their relevance in the wake of the DSi’s release and success of the iPhone as a gaming platform. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of a splash Sony makes and the reaction the new hardware receives when it debuts at E3, which is only a month away. Preloading every PSP Go! with a copy of LittleBigPlanet would certainly make some waves .”

Source: http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/

The Shippuden invasion continues this fall in Naruto Shippuden: Legends: Akatsuki Rising, bringing team-based teen ninja battles to Sony’s handheld.

Players join a slightly older, slightly wiser Naruto and friends as they search for Gaara, who has been kidnapped by the dreaded Akatsuki organization. Will Naruto be able to free sand boy before the Akatsuki release the demon lurking inside of him? More than likely, unless you’re a big fan of “Game Over” screens.

The game is a 3D adventure title, with fighting that utilizes the timed button press method of replicating ninja powers. Players will be able to select two additional team members during the adventure, unleashing team attacks or utilizing other special powers as the situation requires. Akatsuki features two separate story modes, one of which allows you to play the main story from the Akatsuki point of view, along with local wireless versus mode and a scroll-collecting series of side missions.

How do you like him? Young or old?

PC World’s Game On is reporting that its “sources” have “hinted” at the storage medium for the rumored PSP Go! Refuting the claim that the device will ship with on-board Flash Storage, the blog suggests that it will make use of the Memory Stick HG-Micro format announced at CES, although it’s not clear from the wording if that “expanded” version of the current Memory Stick Micro (pictured) is the exact format or just an example.

“Think something like the Memory Stick HG-Micro,” Game On’s Matt Peckham said, “with a 60MB/s transfer rate, approximately 40MB/s faster than original Memory Stick Duo.” Tiny memory cards would be great if this news turns out to be real. It contradicts what we’d already heard about the system, and we don’t know who’s got the facts straight. For that matter, we don’t really know if there are any facts involved. We’re talking rumors about rumors.

Source: PSP Fanboy

This week is pretty good, we have quiet a few updates here with acouple of demos and themes:

PLAYABLE CONTENT
- Marvel vs Capcom 2 demo

PSP CONTENT
- Patapon 2 demo
- Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero “Lil Asagi Comes Home” level pack $3.99

- Patapon 2 Battlefield theme

THEMES & WALLPAPERS
- Patapon 2 Battlefield theme
- PixelJunk Eden Encore theme B
- Disgaea 3 Pleinair theme $0.99
– University of Louisville theme $1.99
– Ole Miss theme $1.99
- PixelJunk Eden Encore wallpaper B

ADD-ON CONTENT
- Killzone 2 Steel and Titanium pack $5.99
- LittleBigPlanet Egyptian minipack $2.99
- Burnout Paradise Cops and Robbers pack $9.99
- Disgaea 3 DLC (continued)
- Need For Speed Undercover Boss Car Bundle $4.99
- Need For Speed Undercover Challenge Series expansion free
- Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (continued)
- Rock Band DLC (continued)