Pop station

The POP Station is an inexpensive handheld game device, with a design inspired or shamelessly stolen from the Sony PlayStation Portable. It is made by a Chinese company and is sold in flea markets but can also be found at normal game centers in Japan. It is limited to a single game, running on a LCD screen. The packaging design on the Popstation's box is similar to the actual PSP's box packaging, however, there was some slight alterations to the box art, possibly to avoid copyright infringement.

There are four different games to choose from, namely "Soccer", "Street Fighter", "Submarine Invasion" and "Fortress Guardian". The game is embedded into the machine and there is only one game per machine (a feature also found in the Game & Watch-consoles). Each game is displayed on an LED screen with flashing images to portray movement of the characters or objects within the game.

Overall Model

There is a D-pad on the left and four action buttons on the right with squares and triangles to represent each action. Unlike the PSP, there are two triangle and square buttons (the psp features one triangle, one cross, one circle, and one square). There are also pause, start, reset and sound buttons above the D-pad and action buttons. Some features are missing from the original model such as the analog pad, volume buttons, L and R buttons and other screen options. Also, instead of the DC-in socket, it has been replaced with another strap holder.

The "Value pack" has a color display, which actually has limited colors that are embedded within the LED flashing images. Monophonic (one note at a time) music is played before and after the games. The machine takes three AAA batteries. The instructions are included on a small piece of paper and has directions for the "function keys manual", "Battery Installation" and "Warning!", which states that the product is harmful to children under the age of three years. Also included are a wrist strap and headphones.

Three versions of the POP station are available for sale, one is the normal version containing only one game per console. The second has an FM radio installed, it also has more than 20 different games, and the third is one that contains 9999 games in one.

As it is not a true Sony PSP, but rather only taking its design traits from it, there are no functions to play UMD videos or PSP games.

POP Station in the media

The BBC science fiction series Torchwood featured a child with a POP Station in the episode "Dead Man Walking." [ [http://www.ashens.com/2008/02/torch-it-torch-it-good.html Torch it! Torch it good! - ashens.com] ]

POPStation

Or POPS for short, is the official PS1 emulator for the PlayStation Portable. It was introduced by Sony with the release of firmware version 3.00 and up, allowing PSP owners to play original PlayStation titles on their PSP systems.

Since the PlayStation Portable cannot read PlayStation discs directly, PS1 games needed to be purchased through the PlayStation Network and saved onto the PSP's Memory Stick.

Originally, when the PS1 emulation feature was announced for the PlayStation Portable, it was generally assumed that--given its wireless internet capabilities and built-in web browser--PSP owners would simply use their PlayStation Portables to connect to the PlayStation Store directly. However, it was later announced by Sony that the PlayStation Store would only be available through the PS3, and that PSP owners now needed to also own a PS3 in order to purchase PlayStation games for their PlayStation Portable.

Because of this, many customers found it more convenient (and economical) to simply download converted PlayStation titles from file sharing sites once the Sony firmwares which included POPS had been cracked by hackers and incorporated into later versions of custom firmware. Later on homebrew developers also released a command line conversion tool, also named "PopStation," for converting original PlayStation disc images into EBOOT.pbp files. This then allowed PSP owners to rip their old PlayStation games onto their computers and convert them into PSP-playable POPS format themselves.

Since the original debut of the original PlayStation Store, Sony has created the PSP-oriented PlayStation Store (PC)--which as its name suggests, is accessible through an internet browser on a PC. However, the PlayStation Store (PC) does not offer all of the downloadable content that is available on the PS3 store. Furthermore, a special download client called the PlayStation Network Downloader is required to download PSN content directly onto the PSP memory stick. This software was implemented as a DRM mechanism in order to prevent customers from illegally pirating downloaded content. Currently, PlayStation Store (PC) content is only accessible through PCs running Microsoft's Windows XP or Vista operating systems, and there has been no announcement as to when Mac or Linux users can expect a compatible version of the Playstation Network Downloader.

ee also

*Neo Double Games, the Nintendo DS version
*PlayStation Portable
*Trademark infringement

References

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvXleDSkB-g Video review of the POPstation]