“Deep Red” PSP announced

Releasing this June is a new red PlayStation Portable. It’s a beauty, actually. Nice red enamel and on the back a silkscreen of Kratos, the protagonist of the God of War franchise.

It’s part of a package that includes the PSP, a copy of the game Chains of Olympus, Kratos' first appearance on PSP, the movie Superbad on UMD, and a voucher to download the PSP game Syphon Filter: Combat Ops onto a Memory Stick. The God of War package deal has a MSRP of Cdn$199.99.

God of War: Chains of Olympus, the new PSP game starring Kratos, will be available on March 4 for those of you already in possession of a PSP system.

In related PlayStation news, Sony has come up with a PS3 bundle for late Q2 that includes an 80GB PS3, a new Dualshock 3 wireless controller, and a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for only Cdn$499 (suggested).

The Dualshock 3 game pad combines the rumble feature of the old PS2 controllers with the motion-sensing Sixaxis technology. They will be available in April for Cdn$54.95.

Metal Gear Solid collection

News today that Konami is releasing the first three Metal Gear Solid games in one package for the PlayStation 2 game system.

Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection includes the original Metal Gear Solid, developed for the original PlayStation, the director's cut of Metal Gear Solid 2, and Metal Gear Solid 3. All of it comes in a commemorative package with artwork by renowned Metal Gear Solid artist Yoji Shinkawa.

The Metal Gear games, with anti-hero Solid Snake as the protagonist, pioneered the stealth action game genre.

I just know I'm not the only one waiting patiently for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. It's expected to be released in June.

CES 2008: Blu-ray support for PSP

Sony has revealed Blu-ray Discs that include not just a bright, fancy high-definition version of a film, but also a lower-resolution version of the same content.

The idea here is that you can watch the high-def version on your high-def television, and copy the low-res version to your PSP for remote viewing. One price gets you multiple versions of the same content to use on the devices you prefer.

That's more like it.