It’s always nice to see Sony supporting the PSP with the occasional thoughtful feature that nobody will use (y’know, music visualizers, Go!Messenger, video games) but this time I think they’ve produced something genuinely useful.

Nay, two things! All is revealed in the title above and after the jump…

As that title suggests, Sony have announced that the PSP is to become host to a download store accessed through the PSP’s WiFi and will also have some handy new online features powered by its bigger, Cell-boosted brother. What exactly do these mean though?

That first one’s pretty bleedin’ obvious if I do say so myself. Rather than have to hop onto your PS3 or your PC to buy some new games and the like for your PSP, you’ll be able to hit up the PSP’s very own PlayStation Store and operate everything from there. This’ll surely please the various Mac/Linux-using PSP owners who haven’t been able to buy anything off of the Store until now, as the PC Store made a DRM-based Network Downloader program compulsory if you were to download anything onto your PSP.

Although an exact date isn’t quite available yet, Sony have said that you can expect the Store to launch in Japan sometime this Fall. Fingers crossed that this isn’t just a Japan release and that the rest of the world is confirmed as receiving the Store around the time that the final release date is announced.

As for this second announcement, it might seem a little odd. Why use a larger internet-enabled device to power a smaller internet-enabled device if this smaller internet-enabled device is already internet-enabled? Once you’ve sifted through that tongue twister, the answer can be obvious: improved online play.

I wont beat about the bush in saying that support for PSP’s online play has been mediocre at best; barely any games support it save for a handful of seriously dedicated titles (the most memorable of my pickings being Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which let you assemble a squadron of hearty soldiers and send them off on their own to fight online while you went off and did other things). However, with the addition of PS3-based online play, things could get interesting.

With the PS3 brought into the equation, you’re also bringing any PS3 headsets or keyboards you have into the equation too. On a basic level, this means you’ll be able to use text and voice chat through your PS3 if you don’t feel like spending 3 hours typing out “hello how are you” on the PSP’s on-screen keyboard or holding your new PSP-3000 up to your face so you can shout down the in-built microphone…but really, who wouldn’t?!

On a larger scale, this could mean actually using your PS3 to play your PSP games..but then it’d be sorta pointless, since one of the “P”s does stand for, y’know, portable. Still, gotta say I’m excited about the PSP version of the PS Store. Not too excited about download speeds though. Ooooh no.

Source: PSP Wi-Fi Store coming in Fall, new PS3… – PSP Fanboy

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