My Sony PSP Firmware Version 4.00 Wishlist

There is an interesting conversation happening over at the PSPMod.com forums about the potential update to the firmware that runs on Sony’s PlayStation Portables. The rumour is that Sony is planning to release firmware version 4.00, which would be the next major release. What does this mean? Major new features! People are speculating that the Flash engine could be upgraded to version 9, and the web browser could be updated. There are several things that I personally hope Sony will include, and the following is a list of them. Feel free to comment what you would like to see in the next update.

Better Music Player
The default music player included in the PSP is just terrible. The interface is terrible to navigate through and it lacks support for many standard features. For example, creating playlists should be made easier. I don’t want to connect my PSP to the computer everytime I want to choose different songs. Also some “cool” features would be useful too, like the play count or album covers. Finally it would be nice if they supported the OGG codec for the people, like me, that like to use free standards. But I don’t think that will happen any time soon. 🙁

Better RSS Reader
The current RSS client only supports video and audio podcasts. I find this very limiting, because I don’t listen to many shows on the internet. Instead I read my news from different sites that provide text feeds, which I would like to read while I am waiting for the bus in the morning. Adding support for text feeds shouldn’t be that hard, considering that they already have a web browser for displaying the text and the RSS code for fetching latest updates.

Flash 9 Support
I am not sure how hard this is to implement, but its addition would be great. It would allow PSP users to watch YouTube movies and play online games from their handheld device. The only thing missing would be a way to download the YouTube movies directly, so you can watch them offline too. But I think that is up to the homebrew community to implement.

Other PSP Detection
I find that the socialibility of the PlayStation Portable is lacking. I think it would be great if I could just turn on my PSP in a crowded place (like the university campus) and see if there are any other people playing a game. Then I could see if I have the game, and join in the fun without ever having to figure out who they are. Basically it would be like connecting to an online server, just more local. A chatroom wouldn’t be bad too, I think the Nintendo DS has one.

Homebrew Applications Support
There are many programmers that want to hack on the PSP and create their own games. However they cannot do so with the official firmware, instead they have to install the custom firmware. This can be a pain to do, especially if you do not have a Pandora’s Battery to fix any accidental bricks. So why can’t Sony include an API so people can create their own applications? They do not have to provide any direct access to the hardware and include some random restrictions, so nobody can create an ISO loader or a downgrader using it. There is an already existing Python interpreter for the PSP and a Jave Virtual Machine in the works, so why can’t Sony adopt either one of the projects?