PSP Update 2.6: Podcasting (RSS) and WMA Music Support!
Sony just released a new firmware update v2.6 for the PSP with RSS(!) and Windows Music support. I'm downloading it to try now, but I think this is a pretty cool update. I have to say, besides Sony's insistence on hammering the homebrew scene …
Context & Ripple Effects
This firmware release is the payoff to Sony's early-November push into audio content: the company announced PSP podcasting support at the start of the month alongside its PSP Media Manager PC software for downloading and encoding podcasts, and version 2.6 now delivers the receiving side natively — an RSS reader plus WMA playback on the device itself. That last part matters because until now Windows users had to convert their music libraries before loading them onto the handheld.
The update lands against a complicated backdrop for Sony. The company spent September cracking down on PSP hacks and homebrew development even as it courted mainstream users, and late October brought the confirmed finding that its music DRM software shipped with a hidden rootkit — so the same week Sony ships an unusually open-feeling feature set (RSS, WMA), its credibility on format openness and platform control is under scrutiny. Third-party hardware like Neuros' MPEG-4 recorder for PSP and iPod has been filling the transfer-and-conversion gap in the meantime.
First-order effects
- PSP owners can subscribe to podcasts directly on the device over RSS and play WMA files without pre-conversion, removing the Media Manager/PC round-trip for both podcasts and existing Windows-format music libraries.
- Russell Beattie Notebook's reaction captures the enthusiast split: praise for a genuinely useful firmware update running alongside continued criticism of Sony's hammering of the homebrew scene.
Second-order effects
- Accessory makers like Neuros, whose recorders and converters exist partly to bridge content gaps on the PSP, see the handheld absorb more of that function in firmware with each update — squeezing the third-party workaround market.
- Podcast publishers gain a portable-gaming audience reachable by standard RSS, just as industry panels are calling out inconsistent feed usability; a big-screen device that subscribes natively raises the stakes on getting feeds discoverable.
Third-order effects
- If each firmware cycle keeps folding media functions into the PSP, the handheld consolidates into a single pocket device for games, music, and episodic audio/video — with Sony's firmware cadence, not third-party add-ons, deciding what the device becomes.
- Sony's simultaneous moves — opening formats in official firmware while locking out homebrew — sketch the model other console makers will be pushed toward: controlled openness where the vendor chooses which outside content flows in and which outside code stays out.
The trend: Handheld game consoles are evolving into general-purpose media clients through vendor-controlled firmware updates, with Sony using the PSP to pull podcasts and rival formats onto a device it still keeps tightly locked.