Sony thinking of removing features from PSP firmware?

Well, with all the new features that Sony had been adding with their firmware updates (not all of them very useful though), it was only a matter of time before the miniscule 32MB of onboard flash started to be a limitation. And yes, there is a genuine concern of space on the NAND flash. For example, firmware 2.82 uses around 25-28 MB of the flash, leaving hardly any space. And custom firmwares like SE-B use up almost the whole of the flash.

With all of the new bells and whistles promised with firmware 3.0, it seems that there might be a shortage of space on the flash to actually deploy all the features. I wouldn’t take any guesses, but I’m sure the so-hyped PS1 emulator uses a lot of space. Similarly, the PS3-PSP interconnectivity won’t be easy either.

And well, it seems that while 3.0 might bring in a lot of good stuff, a few people might see some of the older features missing. And no, this isn’t any rumor either; Sony’s latest survey going out with the Rachet and Clank betas suggests that they want to know the features which are used the least. In the accompanying picture, thanks to PSP Fanboy, we have a small list:

• Watching video content
• Listen to music
• View photos
• RSS feeds subscription
• Internet browsing
• Use as a storage device

Now here’s the problem – I’m not ready to give up any of those features, period! Didn’t Sony advertise the PSP as an all-out media device? It ain’t no multimedia device if it can’t do all of those things. My opinion is that they could take out the Location-Free capability, something which is used by hardly anyone. If they forced me to choose one from the list, it would probably be the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. But I’d probably be very bitter about it.

An alternate route would be to allow people to install some part of the firmware files onto the Memory Stick. That way, we would have a choice of the features that we want. Or they could even package things like the Web browser or the Location Free player as separate eboots so that they can be put in the GAME folder on the memory stick and loaded from there. The way I see it, this would probably be the best use of the GAME folder by Sony. What do you guys think? Ready to give up any features?

Well, with all the new features that Sony had been adding with their firmware updates (not all of them very useful though), it was only a matter of time before the miniscule 32MB of onboard flash started to be a limitation. And yes, there is a genuine concern of space on the NAND flash. For example, firmware 2.82 uses around 25-28 MB of the flash, leaving hardly any space. And custom firmwares like SE-B use up almost the whole of the flash.

With all of the new bells and whistles promised with firmware 3.0, it seems that there might be a shortage of space on the flash to actually deploy all the features. I wouldn’t take any guesses, but I’m sure the so-hyped PS1 emulator uses a lot of space. Similarly, the PS3-PSP interconnectivity won’t be easy either.

And well, it seems that while 3.0 might bring in a lot of good stuff, a few people might see some of the older features missing. And no, this isn’t any rumor either; Sony’s latest survey going out with the Rachet and Clank betas suggests that they want to know the features which are used the least. In the accompanying picture, thanks to PSP Fanboy, we have a small list:

• Watching video content
• Listen to music
• View photos
• RSS feeds subscription
• Internet browsing
• Use as a storage device

Now here’s the problem – I’m not ready to give up any of those features, period! Didn’t Sony advertise the PSP as an all-out media device? It ain’t no multimedia device if it can’t do all of those things. My opinion is that they could take out the Location-Free capability, something which is used by hardly anyone. If they forced me to choose one from the list, it would probably be the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. But I’d probably be very bitter about it.

An alternate route would be to allow people to install some part of the firmware files onto the Memory Stick. That way, we would have a choice of the features that we want. Or they could even package things like the Web browser or the Location Free player as separate eboots so that they can be put in the GAME folder on the memory stick and loaded from there. The way I see it, this would probably be the best use of the GAME folder by Sony. What do you guys think? Ready to give up any features?