CES - the consumer tech show currently playing in Vegas - has achieved what had seemed impossible. Yup, it has got me interested in the PSP again. Not for anything game related of course - the DS covers all things portable - but the Skype and Blu-ray announcements, combined with the splurge of recent PSP/PS3 connectivity updates, have finally started to harness the potential of a device that has never really been stretched.
Remember how we all oohed and ahhed at the sexy screen and the shiny blackness? Remember how we got quickly bored of playing PS2 ports? One or two exceptions aside the PSP has never really cut it as a gaming machine. Perhaps this is why Sony has been increasingly emphasising and developing the PSP's broader capabilities. Whatever the reason it has helped the device to finally find a niche. Whether I'll ever make Skype calls from a PSP - unlikely - or watch a Blu-ray movie wirelessly - probably - remains to be seen, but the PSP's future is clearly as a mainstream entertainment device and not as the portable games console we once thought. Or are you still intending to use your PSP for games only?
