Sony has long been trying to fight the Piracy issue with their PSP Handheld Gaming Console. Rumors are that Sony will be releasing a 5.0 Firmware update for their PSP handhelds soon.
An unnamed French development studio, which was given access to the limited beta of the 5.0 firmware update has confirmed that the official firmware version 5.0 for the PSP will be released shortly. With the release of PSP-3000 this month, we can make a strong guess that the release of PSP 5.0 firmware will coincide with it. The three main features which will be added to the 5.0 Firmware of PSP are:
Access to PlayStation Network: PSP owners can now compete with one another in almost all future game releases for PSP, thanks to the Sony PSN which will be adding the 5.0 firmware update. Although the French sources suggest that this feature will not necessarily include support for wireless connection to the Playstation Store but rather it may offer access to Online friend lists and trophy support within the Game. It may even support players communicating with each other all within their console.
A new and improved RSS reader: People all over the Internet have been complaining about the bugs they have been facing in the RSS readers of the PSP. Sony has at last heard their complaints and has decided to act upon it. They are pushing in new RSS readers to the PSP that will allow the flow of reading text too. All the RSS readers in the previous firmware versions of the PSP support reading images, videos and sounds in RSS feeds but not the text which will be ironed out with the 5.0 Firmware release.
Integrated Screenshot Capture support: The new firmware will allow users to take in-game Screenshots and save them directly to their Memory Sticks. However it is not clear if the in-game screenshot capability of the Firmware 5.0 will be dependent upon a particular game’s support or not.
