Direct PSP Store access 'coming soon' to US
Which has to mean it'll be in Europe shortly, too
At last week's Tokyo Game Show, Sony revealed it would be rolling out direct PSP access to the PlayStation Store in Japan on October 15th, meaning PSP users will no longer have to download content to their PC then transfer it to the PSP.
However, Sony had no word on when the feature would be appearing in a firmware update near Europe.
According to the official US PlayStation blog, however, it could be shortly. At least, the blog reveals that the feature, included in PSP firmware update v5.00 is "coming soon" to the US.
Not only will the new firmware include direct access to the Store, but it also adds a sleep timer option that can be used while you're playing music, and a full-screen keyboard option for text entry. The background of the XMB has been redesigned too.
In the meantime, Sony says the current PlayStation Store for PC will be down while it gets a revamp.
Firmware updates normally reach us pretty quickly after the US, so we'll be keeping a beady eye out for v.5.00. It's definitely looking like we don't have long to wait, though.