First I would like to congratulate you for a fine peace of hardware. Everyone I have showed it to (the Playstation Portable) from the youngest to the oldest has been very impressed. Of course I show different content to different people.

The children are very attracted to the games. However, in my after school program, I copy audio and video clips to the SD Card as a teaching tool. They learn the audio and video content very quickly. This shows that it has a lot of potential for being more than just a game addiction.

I show adults and other clients’ pictures and video clips of projects that I put together for them.

I was very impressed when I did the network update and found a web browser. This added a new dimension, as I could put content on the web for my students to explore and study. My initial letter was to ask you to add the ability to view web content off line. My students could download the content when they are at the center and view the content at home. The content could include progress reports for their parents, or reviews for them to study for the current projects they happen to be working with.

I also was going to ask you to add the ability to edit/view text files. This would give an even greater dimension for the students to study and review. This would also open up your device to a wider marketing group, as people could soon use such feature for shopping list and todo agenda list.

I also notice there is no feature for a video playlist. After having put the content of a 60 minute mini-dv tape on the SD Card, I was trying to allow the grand mother of a student to view the activities. The nearly 100 scenes were lengths between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. It was very awkward to give the presentation because it stops on each clip; then you have to go to the menu to get to the next clip.

The wide screen makes it much easier to read than a standard PDA. Mom and Pop would soon be borrowing the kid’s PSP, and eventually find a need to buy their own.

As I was composing my letter, I decided to do a little research and make sure that I had the latest firmware update. Then I noticed a very wide following with tools to already do most of the things I was compiling to suggest for you to add. While researching, I also noticed a site that actually had tools for a user to compile his own applications. This really overwhelmed me. I envisioned many things such as timers for our swim team, text editors for some of our younger students to practice alphabets and writing their names (some are as young as 4 years old), video playlist tools, and the list goes on.

Suddenly to my dismay, I soon learned as is shared by many of your users, there seems to be an effort on your part to prevent third parties from developing applications for your device.

I believe if you would change that attitude and allow your users to have more access to the OS, you may find that you have something that will benefit you in many ways, by opening up your market to more people that you can imagine. Your clients will also be happy to have all the new resources available for their device. I’m sure your already high sells would skyrocket. I believe if you don’t take this avenue, you might soon start to see a decline in sells. This will be especially the case if some other hardware manufacturer jumped on the idea.

Unlock the Playstation Portable, and there would soon be more applications developed for it than you could imagine.

-- L. James

----------------- L. D. James ljames@apollo3.com www.apollo3.com/~ljames