Fancy a magazine with playable UMD demos discs? Robin Parker from MediaWeek reports that Future is to publish a bi-monthly magazine - “Official PSP Guidebook” dedicated to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) beginning April 27, 2006.

By Robin Parker
MediaWeek. 2006-03-17 12:03 PM

Official PSP Guidebook replaces a series of irregularly-published PlayStation 2 magazine specials, largely covering the PSP console, which recorded an average ABC of 31,859 last year.

On sale from 27 April, this is the third magazine dedicated to the console. Imagine bought the monthly title Go Play from Highbury last year while in January, start-up publisher Evolve Publishing launched the four-weekly title Pure PSP with a print run of 40,000.

Unlike existing titles, the magazine will offer playable demos of new games on a cover mounted UMD disc.

Future is also in the process of overhauling its ailing unofficial PlayStation titles, PlayStation World and PSM2, to cover the forthcoming PlayStation 3 console, following Sony’s announcement last week of a worldwide November launch.

In 2005, PSW’s circulation fell 37.6% to 70,077 and PSM2’s dropped 25.7% to 54,442. Future will re-launch both titles this summer, though Sony has yet to award a license for an official PlayStation 3 magazine to replace Future’s established Official PlayStation 2.

Ever since Sir Howard became the Chairman and CEO, the prevailing dogma within Sony these days is restructuring. So, with the 1st quarter 2006 coming to an end, how is Sony’s restructuring program coming along? President Ryoji Chubachi was quoted as saying on Wednesday: “Restructuring at Sony Corp. is progressing faster than originally anticipated but there is still much to be done to revive the electronics company.”

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We’ve been keeping our lips zipped to avoid any issues, but as engadget has revealed the news we feel inclined to share what we have available. The 002, 003 and 005 will be 512mb, 1GB and 2GB respectively and replace the existing E100/E300 series (it will not replace the NW-A3000, nor NW-A1000). Pricing will be below the rival iPod Nano in the related sizes and should be very attractive to most consumers. The usual OLED is employed again and gives this thumbdrive an unique look amongst the competition. Apparently, there will be no ‘Artist Link’ (which was introduced with the NW-A3000, etc.) and this isn’t too terribly surprising as it doesn’t run too well with Connect Player anyways.

The units will NOT debut with Connect Player, but rather come with Sonicstage 3.4 (which was a very well made release by Sony). It is also noteworthy to state that this unit will not have FM/AM capability, which may have made it uber attractive in the end, but the jury is still out on that front.

March 9, 2006 – Sony sweeps 14 iF product design awards at CeBit 2006 including two prestigious iF gold awards for its digital still camera Cyber-shot T7 and the WALKMAN A Series (NW-A3000 and NW-A1000). The coveted iF seal of design excellence was awarded by the prestigious International Forum Design. (click here for more information on iF design)

Selected from 1,952 products, entered from 37 countries worldwide, the International Forum Design awarded the coveted iF seal of design excellence to the following Sony products within the two categories “Consumer Electronics / Telecommunications”* and “Computers”:

*In addition, within the category “Consumer Electronics / Telecommunications” the following Sony Ericsson products received an iF product design award: HBH-608 (Bluetooth™ headset), K750i (2.0 Megapixel camera phone) and the Z520i (Expressive Clamshell mobile phone).

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