Times are tough and Sony knows that if it wants to sell PSPs(Believe me they want to sell some badly) they had better try some new tricks to entice buyers. And what could make the consumer want you more? Sony thinks that it’s all in the colors.

Sony is releasing the European PSP in three new colors to compliment the Carnival Colors we covered just a week ago. You’ll be able to get your PSP in Radiant Red, Mystic Silver and Pearl White. They might be trying a little too hard. Those color names sound like stripper names for Eighty-year-olds. In fact, I’m pretty sure Pearl White starred on The Golden Girls.

I have a couple PSPs lying around my house and both of them are boring, shiny black devices. Sure, you can get silver PSP here in the states, but that’s not really any better than black. What I really want is a PSP with a bright color like Nintendo offers with its DS portable.

Sony is offering portable gamers in Japan the option of four new and very bright colors for their gaming enjoyment. The bright shades are called Carnival colors and the machines can be had in blue, red, green, and yellow.

The PSP is cool and all, but like any other device, it’s outer shell is boring. Gametech has the answer and wants to glam up your PSP with a set of protector cases coming out that make your portable look like a work of art. The designs are the bright patterns of Japanese woodcarvings and traditional paintings.

Their new line’s name translates to Wasabi Beautiful Colors and they come in durable hard covers, flexible soft covers, and gauze capsule cases that make your PSP look like it was wrapped. They’ll be available in Japan at the end of the month, and they’ll probably hit other countries soon after.

Brando’s ingenious 7-in-1 USB Charging Cable is like a gadget charging orgy. It provides power for your PSP, DS, DS Lite, DSi and Game Boy Advance handhelds, and all it costs is a USB port and $7. Sure, this cable is a Brando product, and could possibly fry all of your well loved game handhelds, due to it’s questionable craftsmanship, but what is life without some risk.

At $7, what the hell. If it explodes, you’ll have some new parts for a future DIY project. I’ll put it to you, valued readers of the ‘Brick, would you trust Brando’s latest charging gadget with your handhelds?

Check out this creative marketing campaign for Sony’s PSP gaming console. Have you seen one in your neighborhood? I’m guessing no, since this is actually a concept for a PSP campaign made by a fan. But how cool would it be to spot a transparent PSP with a Tie Fighter, or even Spiderman in the background. Hit the link for more pics. Sony needs to hire this guy at once.

Some guy(Presumably Disco Stu from Springfield) made himself a retro, light-tastic PSP that suggests that Disco is either coming back or that the timeline has been altered and Sony has now created the PSP in 1977. The flashing Disco lights will definitely distract you from any game and get the attention of gamer ravers. The whole system consists of 30 LEDs all linked to the sound output and set to pulse in time with the music. I wonder if the modder heard whispers that said, “If you build it they will come”. They, being the Bee Gees. Video below.

At the Leipzig Games Convention today, Sony revealed the brand new PSP-3000, which will arrive Oct 15 in Europe for around $250. As far as looks, it looks the same as the PSP-2000, but it features an “improved screen that’s better outside with no glare and a built-in mic.” A no glare screen will sell many on the device by itself. I guess you could say that this is Sony’s DS Lite. More details have yet to surface, but we’ll stay on top of it for you.

The HB758 is an interesting phone. Not bad looking, with some nice features. It’s got a slide up feature for the keypad and slide down for your directional buttons so you can game too. It’s also a tri-band phone with a 2.8-inch display screen, 3.2-megapixel camera, integrated mp3/mp4 player, TV, Bluetooth, FM radio, simulation games, dual speakers, dual SIM slot, microSD slot and it supports multi languages. It’s priced at $142.82.

The most interesting thing about it though is how it looks like a PSP. They really went to town with the mimicry even adding what looks like the Playstation logo. It’s not a bad looking phone since a real PSP phone doesn’t exist as of yet, so why not buy this one and pretend? That’s probably what they want.

This guy got sick and tired of waiting on a real honest to god PSP phone, so he took matters into his own hands. He integrated what looks like a HAIER mobile phone with a touchscreen to the back of the PSP, getting rid of the UMD drive. He gets props for doing it and I don’t want to rain on anybody’s PSP parade, but um, well I have to say it’s a tad fugly isn’t it? Still, at least he’s doing something to birth a PSP phone into the world.

Samuel Lau took both devices, put on some Barry White, uncorked the champagne, then tucked them in bed together and closed the door. The result is a somewhat sexy sliding screen incarnation with a QWERTY keyboard underneath.

Unfortunately this baby is just a concept. Still pretty sweet. It’s a concept that comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera in back, a webcam in front, motion sensors, touch screen display, even geo-tracking so you can stalk other PSP owners. I wish this existed.

The Japanese have been using GPS applications on their PSP for awhile, but now it looks like Sony is about to get off it’s ass and bring it Stateside. They are working on a new game that will take advantage of GPS to give the player a totally unique playing experience no matter where you go or where you are.

The new peripheral will change the dynamics of games on the PSP, or so they hope, opening up new ways to play. Sony plans to introduce the whole GPS thing to third party publishers while they brainstorm within their first-party studios.

We all know the rumors. By now most of us have seen the patents. But are these the real, official Sony Ericsson PSP phone specs?

Well, if this scanned white paper is to be believed, the PSP phone is going to be made by Sony Ericsson, not just Sony. It will feature the “full PSP experience” and also have advanced phone features. Some of the specs include: 4.3″ 16:9 widescreen TFT LCD display at 480 x 272 pixels and 16.77 million colors, 2 megapixel camera, Built-in web browser, Built-in podcasting, Flight mode, Bluetooth connectivity, Memory Stick Micro/microSD memory card slot, Streaming audio/video, Video calling, Speakerphone, Alarm clock, calculator, calendar, and more.

Sony’s patent application for a haptic touchscreen composed of “tactile pixels” shows former Sony Computer Entertainment chief Phil Harrison as the inventor. It also has a bunch of references to potential use in “a game device” and to “game events,” so it seems fairly obvious that it was developed as an idea for PSP.

The patent app describes a haptic feedback system that seems pretty complicated. The pixels themselves are capable of moving up and down, providing feedback to user actions. It’s certainly interesting, but we’re not gonna hold our breath waiting for this to hit the consumer market anytime soon. We wouldn’t mind being wrong though.

As far as originality, you won’t find any here. When they designed this Maxx Digital portable DVD player, they simply re-did the PSP for some reason I can’t fathom. Not that it’s not a good looking PSP. It is. It’s just a PSP, not a DVD player design. I just don’t like all my stuff to look like PSP’s, that’s all I’m saying.

The PDV-8500BLK features a nice 8.5-inch LCD widescreen, and will play videos in DVD, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW, VCD and SVCD formats. It’s also got support for JPEG, MP3 and MPEG4 files via a built-in SD, MMS/MS card reader slot. Strangely it doesn’t play video games at all. And no UMD discs. It will cost you $120.

The portable is getting Google search, with stored memory of your last 20 searches. Another feature is that video played from a memory stick can be sped up or slowed down to suit your needs. Nothing very earth shattering, but welcomed nontheless.