PlayStation Portable 2.50 Firmware Released

Version 2.50 of the PSP firmware has been released in Japan, containing a few new features in addition to the security patches applied in version 2.01, released only last week. The biggest addition to version 2.50 is the Location Free Player, a support application for the Location Free TV peripheral that allows a PSP to watch TV from anywhere within range of the device. The Location Free TV base station is sold separately for 32,800 yen ($286.76 USD) in Japan; the device has not been announced for American release yet, which makes the Location Free Player's inclusion in future U.S. firmware updates an unsure prospect. Other new features in version 2.50 are Unicode support for the PSP's web browser, the ability to save display mode and text size settings, the ability to save form entries in the browser, support for WPA-PSK(AES) wireless security, Hangul-language keyboard input, and the ability to play copyrighted video files from the memory stick. As with past PSP firmware updates, the new 2.50 is currently an optional download but will soon be shipped with new PSP games that require the installation of the update to run on the system.