It shouldn't be too surprising to see Wipeout Pulse and Daxter move to PS2. Sony has made it something of a tradition to move its big PSP exclusives back onto Sony's aging home console. While this potential move may anger some, it's important to note that these ports usually come out over a year since the original release -- long past a game's relevance at the store shelves.

These ports are not confirmed (the only source we see is French site Jeuxvideo.fr). But with Wipeout HD coming out on PS3 and Secret Agent Clank coming out on PSP, there's very little reason for fans to get up-in-arms about these potential projects.

[Thanks, Joe!]

What an adorable Daxter plushie. It's so cute you just want to grab it and squeeze the life out of the thing. It's a really sweet ode to the weasel-like hero. In case you're wondering, this cuddly little snuggle toy was made by Deviant Art member Chao-Fangirl. We wonder if she'll make us one of her plushies. Maybe she will ... if we ask really nicely.

[Thanks Max! Via That Girl's Site]

In a surprise move, Sony has announced that the PSP Slim Daxter bundle is available right now. The package includes the silver PSP Slim, the greatest hits version of Daxter and the Family Guy Freakin' Sweet Collection UMD, a well as a 1 GB memory stick for $199.

The accessories such as additional AC adapters, the sexy video out cables, or the new headphone adapter will be released in the following weeks. Also the black PSP Slim solo PSP package will be released 'during September' with the white Star Wars Battlefront PSP Slim package coming in October. Big news, so who out there is gonna be the first person to pick up a new PSP and report back here?

[Update] According to commentors, the pack is available sporadically across the country. In the meantime, you can order it from Gamestop online right here. It is in stock and will ship today (or maybe tomorrow depending on their cut off time).

Press release after the jump.

The $30 price drop isn't exclusive to GameStop/EB Games--it's universal. But, that's not where the savings end. Sony has also added two more games to PSP's Greatest Hits lineup: Daxter and Syphon Filter.

According to the press release, "We have always been passionate about making great entertainment accessible to everyone, and the new price for PSP, as well as the continued growth of the 'Greatest Hits' library, reflect our ongoing commitment to supporting and expanding the PSP community," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "We are pleased that we are able to engineer savings for the consumer at this stage of PSP's lifecycle, allowing more individuals to experience PSP for the first time. In particular, we have recently seen a steady rise in the number of teens adopting PSP as their primary handheld entertainment system, and we expect the new price will accelerate that trend."

Sony also reminds players that the future of PSP is quite bright, especially with the upcoming God of War: "Ready At Dawn couldn't be more pleased with our success bringing Daxter to the PSP platform last year, and now we have another opportunity to blow away expectations of what a developer can accomplish on a portable when Kratos hits the 'small screen' in God of War," said Didier Malenfant, co-founder and president, Ready At Dawn Studios. "PSP is an ideal platform for us to work on because we have a high level of freedom to be creative, and we can deliver gameplay experiences that rival ones you'd get from a computer entertainment system."

[Update: According to Engadget, the PSP Entertainment Pack will also receive a $30 cut, from $250 to $220.]

Do you want to share your PSP-related fan art? Send us an . A new piece of fan art will be shared every Friday.

Ready At Dawn has been in the news a lot lately, but most PSP gamers still love them for their work on Daxter. This week's art depicts the various qualities of our hero. Wennichelle created this work and I'm not sure I've ever seen Daxter depicted any cuter. If Daxter looks good (and he does) there's probably a reason. Wennichelle has done many Daxter fan arts prior and I actually had a difficult time picking which one I wanted to use. If you like Daxter and/or the art above, go check out Wennichelle's Deviant Art account for more. Thanks for making such great fan art Wennichelle!

Daxter was a tremendous success on PSP, even without the presence of his broody, angsty teen co-star, Jak. Well, a rumor is circulating around the web, speaking about the possibility of a PSP Jak game. The (warning) oft-unreliable Wikipedia appears to have a record of the rumor: it began when the resume of voice actor Robin Atkins Downes revealed two unannounced titles: Jak PSP and Big. Since then, Big has turned into Naughty Dog's upcoming PS3 title, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Could Jak PSP be far behind?

The only other evidence supporting this rumor comes from a previous job opening at Naughty Dog, requesting PSP-specific developers. With Ready at Dawn working on God of War, it could be possible that Naughty Dog is working on a PSP Jak game internally. However, with no concrete evidence available right now, this rumor remains exactly that. But, a new Jak game would certainly be a good part of a revived effort to make the platform successful.

[Via 1UP]

Ready at Dawn has been getting a lot of attention lately. Their first game, Daxter, is considered one of PSP's best: not only does it feature solid gameplay, but it features truly impressive graphics technology, and completely invisible load times. Obviously, the team has learned new tricks, and has managed to squeeze more power out of our handheld for their upcoming God of War game. According to co-founder Didier Malenfant, Daxter doesn't come close to taking advantage of the system's true capabilities: "[We] made the conscious decision not to push the hardware as far as we could ... mainly because we wanted to ship the game in a timely manner."

Obviously, the talented team is unlocking even more of PSP's power in God of War. However, "the biggest frustration right now, in a way, is the limitation on the clock speed. We'd love to run our games at 333Mhz (we do internally just for kicks) because it does make a big difference in how much stuff you can push on the platform."

So, how does Ready at Dawn feel about being responsible for two of Sony's biggest franchises? "The truth is," Malenfant explained, "we built Ready At Dawn Studios to create original IP, but ... I don't think anyone here regrets working on two of the world's biggest franchises in the meantime."

The future is bright for this Santa Ana-based team. The single most wanted request the team receives, though, is a PS2 version of Daxter. "I think everyone here would love to do it, and it actually wouldn't be that hard because Daxter was never designed as a handheld game, we could even add a few things for the PS2 version."

[Via Gamasutra; Thanks, Joe!]

I loved the original God of War and from what I've played of God of War II, it seems even better than the first, but what can Ready at Dawn (creators of the excellent Daxter) do with God of War on the PSP? Well first of all, I'm just happy that I am getting more God of War this year, so it fulfills my wishes on that level, but I suppose I should have more expectations than that. Here's what I'd like to see in God of War PSP:

• New weapons (and if possible some that are as fun as the chain blades)
• More powers (how 'bout one that turns enemies into curly fries)
• More level spanning boss battles (like the colossus battle)
• Keep the epic levels and feel
• Orchestrated music (with opera singers if possible, they always sound dramatic)
• More puzzles around killing enemies or using their corpses
• Co-op (it's all the rage now)
• Visuals on par with the PS2 titles
• Intuitive controls

But enough about what I want from God of War PSP, what do you want to see Kratos do in his first portable adventure?

PSP sales have been quite good the last few months and I figured there's probably a lot of new PSP owners that may not be up to speed on what great games the system has to offer. With that in mind, every day this week we'll feature a new genre and list the top 5 games (according to metareviews), so no matter what you're into, you'll have some idea of what games you should own. We start off the week with one of the most popular genres around: Action.

Top 5 Action games on PSP

1. (tie) Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories/Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
2. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
3. Daxter
4. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories

I'm lucky enough to own and have played all of the games in this particular list and trust me, they are all incredible gaming experiences and it's all the more impressive that they're on a portable. I do have to say that I think Ratchet & Clank is better than Daxter and GTA: VCS is better than GTA:LCS, but you really can't go wrong with any of these games. What did you think about these 5 games? What action games aren't on this list that you think every PSP owner should have?

[Data Via Metacritic]

Next Generation has the top 100 selling games for 2006 and the only PSP exclusive game on the list is Daxter coming in at number 92 with 240,000 copies sold. That sounds quite bad on paper until you realize that multi-system games make up most of the list and the vast majority had a PSP iteration (like Family Guy and NFL Street 3). So while there may not be many PSP exclusives on the list, it did undoubtedly help several titles on the list reach their respective positions. I would be very curious to see the overall year's worth of just PSP games. I also can't help but hope that this week's Ratchet & Clank fairs as well as Daxter. What PSP game that didn't make the list do you wish was a top 100 seller?

You've seen the top ten girls of Hooters. You've perused the top ten women of tennis. You may even have seen the top ten girls of gaming, but you haven't yet seen the top ten girls of PSP. Until now that is! The requirements are simple, to qualify she has to be a girl and has to be in a PSP game. But enough with the procrastinating, on with the ceremony!

Top ten after the jump ...

Every major video game site loves to do an end-of-year "Best of" awards feature (something we'll undoubtedly lash out at you, PSP Fanboy reader). Contrary to popular belief, the PSP has done quite well for itself, and some of the awards its received may surprise you. Here's a run-down of everything I've seen across the Internet:

Gamespot
Best Platformer: Daxter
Daxter beat out three Nintendo DS games, including New Super Mario Bros, thanks to its incredible technology, great personality and fantastic gameplay. "The gorgeous visuals and sound are wrapped in gameplay that is as polished and enjoyable as any full-fledged PlayStation 2 game. While not wholly original, Daxter sacrifices nothing and is simply an all-around amazing game."

Best PSP Game: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
"Portable Ops not only delivers some of the best presentation quality to date on the PSP, but makes some meaningful, interesting changes to the MGS formula. The resulting game is very well suited to playing on the go and also achieves a better balance of gameplay and storytelling than previous Metal Gear Solid games."

IGN
PSP Game of the Year: Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
"What's most impressive is the depth of the action -- no second analog stick required! The control scheme enables you to do everything from operate a set of gadgets and diffuse bombs to snipe enemies and sift through different enemy types, all without slowing down the pace of the action."

Games Radar
WTF Award: LocoRoco
Games Radar certainly took a non-traditional approach to awards this year. "We also loved that you couldn't play this game without cracking a smile - the nonsense songs were insanely catchy, the bright colors and curvy shapes were captivating and the overall theme was almost relentlessly happy and fun. By forcing our jaded, stone-like faces to grin once again, LocoRoco earns its Platinum Chalice like few other games on this list."

The "It Doesn't Actually Suck" Award: PSP
Games Radar understands what we've known all the time: PSP is a great system. The plethora of excellent exclusive titles and fantastic PS2 ports has Games Radar and PSP fanboys everywhere asking "this is a bad system?"

Next Generation
23rd Best Game: LocoRoco
In its top 50 list, LocoRoco managed to break into 23rd place. "Eminently cute and weird as a $3 bill, LocoRoco had players controlling a world and tilting it in order for a smiling blobbish thing to collect goodies, get fatter, and eventually roll or drop past a finishing point. It was as if someone's strange drug-induced hallucination had come to life on the PSP, complete with a dandy soundtrack and a punishing difficulty factor."

Circuit City, GameStop, Target, and Toys "R" Us will be receiving the PlayStation Spot service later this month. Japanese and European PSP owners have been enjoying this wireless download service for the past few months. According to IGN, the American versions of these kiosks will stream "game demos, movie trailers, music clips, mini-strategy guides, wallpapers and more" to your PSP.

The first set of available downloads will be quite extensive. Outrun, Worms, Dungeon Siege, MLB 2006, Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins, Lumines 2, Every Extend Extra, Race Driver 2006, and Daxter will all be available at the program's launch. By January 2007, the service is expected to expand to 6000 retail locations.

Just in time for next week's infamous Black Thursday, IGN has released its 2006 Holiday Buyer's Guide and has also added their 10 choices for PSP games that should fill your stockings this Christmas. That's if you've been a good boy or girl, because if you've been bad, you get Family Guy.

• Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception
• Daxter
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
• Killzone: Liberation
• LocoRoco
• Medal of Honor Heroes
• Mercury Meltdown
• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
• Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
• Tekken: Dark Resurrection

What, no Sega Genesis Collection or EA Replay? And while Daxter is a very good game, I don't think too many kids will go Nintendo 64 Kid crazy over getting a game released in March. Still, this is a pretty decent list, and I can't argue with it too much. If you're PSP shopping for someone, you might want to refer to this list.

Unfortunately, my beloved Aussies let me down this week by not buying enough PSP games like they did last week; none made it into the top 10. However, they still bought enough to have a top-10 PSP list.

1. Tekken: Dark Resurrection
2. GTA: Liberty Cities
3. Gangs of London
4. Star Wars: Battlefront II
5. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
6. Daxter
7. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW
8. NBA Live 2006
9. NFS: Most Wanted
10. Burnout Legends

Well, it seems like the Aussies love their violence as the top-five games are all about hunting down and killing your opponent in violent fashion. You gotta love it!