Sony has called the Australian release of the PSP Go a "soft launch" amid low sales numbers. In its first week, the PSP Go managed to move only around 1,000 units in the region.

The Sony HQ in Japan recently filed a patent for "TouchEngine" which, from what it seems, could be used in a variety of hardware ranging from, mobile phones, gaming controllers, to audio/video media devices. With the PSP Go and the PS3 motion controller well on their way, will this pave the way for Sony's next piece of hardware? More details after the jump.

Well here we go again. With barely one week left before the scheduled launch of PSP Go, Kotaku Australia is reporting that the nation's largest games retailer, EB Games, is refusing to stock the PSP Go. According to the site, several stores in Sydney have confirmed that the PSP Go is not currently listed on their database and EB will not support the new PSP iteration.

Homebrew coder Bubbletune is back to release a new update for Game Categories plugin, a handy homebrew plugin that lets you categorize and organize your PSP's Game menu. The latest update has added support for 5.50 GEN, new mode, new options, language support and more.


Download: Game Categories v4

Homebrew coders Xenogears and Becus25 is back on the scene to release their own custom firmware for version 5.50. The Custom Firmware 5.50 MHU is compatible to all PSP-1000 and PSP-2000 models except for PSP owners with TA-088v3 mobos.


Download: Custom Firmware 5.50 MHU

Self co-op kinda sounds like a dirt term, but it's actually a new concept being introduced in SCE Japan Studios and Artoon's upcoming PSP puzzler, echochrono. As you can guess by the name, yes, this is a spin-off of echochrome so expect the same puzzle concept. The design's still minimalist, but it does have a tad more color than echochrome. The "chrono" part in the title is where things get interesting. Details in the full article.

Here's a basket of goodies from the land down under. Sony Computer Entertainment Australia is happy to announce that they will be bringing two of the land's biggest sporting codes exclusively to the PSP. Come July, you will be enjoying AFL Challenge and Rugby League Challenge on your fave handheld.

The list of first-party studios internally owned by Sony runs deep. But how huge is the entire SCEWWS group, really?

During the GDC, John Koller reveals that their internally-run first party division is just about as big as what Microsoft and Nintendo have... combined!

So LittleBigPlanet's got about as much as way over 500,000 user-generated levels since launch. To celebrate the milestone, SCE UK's established their official LBP YouTube page where they'll be posting some of their videos. To kick things off, they've come up with quite an ingenious little YouTube poop. Based off of the popular "Where the hell is Matt" videos, we now have "Where in the World is Sackboy!"

Last week, SCE filed a trademark for "Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman" but no one seemed to know what the hell it was for. Is it a game for the PS3 or PSP? Maybe it's a new advertising campaign? Well, according to rumors, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman is going to be the localization of none other than Japan's Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida!