Following the recent announcement of the PSP-3000, also dubbed the
PSP-"Brite" for its more vibrant screen, there has been some speculation about the potential battery drain caused by that big,
bodacious display. Typically, in a
handheld game system,
the display is one of the biggest drains on power. Concerns were
further raised over news that Sony plans to pull the official
first-party
extended life battery pack from shelves, meaning that
gamers would not be able to buy a bigger battery to compensate for the larger drain on power caused by a brighter screen.
According to the company, potential customers do not have to worry
about the battery life of the new PSP model. In an official statement
on the company blog today, spokesman John Koller said that Japanese
engineers had worked hard to ensure that other parts of the PSP design
were made more efficient in order to conserve power.
"Following an interview we recently did with Gamespot. I'd
like to make a correction and clarify that the new PSP will have
equivalent battery life to the current PSP, about 4 to 6 hours for games
and about 4 to 5 hours for UMD videos. While the enhanced screen of the
new PSP draws a little more power, our engineers in Japan worked to
reduce the power consumption of the overall system including its
components, so you won't have to worry about losing any time when
enjoying the more vibrant visuals displayed with the new PSP."
In the original Gamespot interview, Koller had said that the new PSP
produced about 20-30 minutes less battery life than the previous model.
Did he decide to change his statement due to negative fan reactions, or
simply for a factual correction? More importantly, if the PSP-3000 does
indeed live up to the promised 4-6 hours of play time, will this
satisfy gamers on the go? Or, like Scotty on an old episode of Star
Trek, do you often find yourself out and about with your PSP yelling,
"I need more power!"?
