Poor old PSP hasn’t been getting much love lately. PSP game development has slowed to a near standstill, Nintendo DSi has definitely taken the heat off the Sony PSP-3000 and verbal wars are putting the focus on the possibilities of PSP2 way before its due date. So what could change your mind about the old girl? How about access to some top notch comics, direct from the handheld?
That’s an idea Sony is toying with right now. The console maker recently sent a selection of PSP owners a video trailer, promising “instant access to thousands of comics” sorted by series and genre, to gauge their interest.
Part of the upgrade would be a new comic reading mechanic called Auto-Flow, which would help navigate around the page in a manner more natural to reading than the standard scroll and zoom.
Sony is using its survey to investigate possible pricing options for a new PSP comic service. It wants to know whether readers would prefer iTunes-esque one off payments or an all-you-can-eat subscription buffet.
In fact, Sony has already had a stab at putting comics on PSP with the Metal Gear Solid digital graphical novel and The Cryptics comic currently available on the PlayStation Store in some regions. Hopefully in a few months we’ll see a wider rollout of the scheme, although it’ll never be able to fully replace the joy of leafing through a sheaf of dead tree in the musty confines of a proper comic book store.
