No need to download anything. They include new firmware on UMD. Click and forget. Not a big deal. Even girl is able to make it. No rocket science here.

 Ohh god no i got to update my firmware, its the end the commies are after me.

 So I guess you don't like the Wii updates either, the addition of new channels? It's unbearable really.

well I´m with Gball on this one, eventough I like the fact that firmware glitches made it possible to hack my PSP and unlock all the features, this would not have been needed if it was that way from the start, sure extras are nice but I also think a console sould be a finished product not a work in progress, of course it´s ok to smothen things out but this sort of thing could have been done a long time ago, so before I return to my recliner of rage I have to say that eventhough I don´t think this sort of thing is really bad it does hurt the overall image of consoles as beeing a deus ex machina.

bottom line America: leave the Gball allone, shes only saying what everyone is thinking, companies like Sony, MS and Nintendo think since the internet age started it´s ok to sell unfinished products and make us whait, often never finishing the product at all, then we have to do the upgrading which was their job in the first place, so cut the crap and give us perfection

in other news: the PSP rocks, who cares who sells how many as long as you have a perfect portable that takes your favorite games, videos and musik where you want them when you want them,

now back to you Kent 

 yes you are the odd one out, although if this product was made by nintendo i doubt you would be saying the same thing

This just proves how poorly thought out the PSP design was. The system has been underclocked for over 2 and half years because of a poor design philosphy by Sony. The number one priority of any portable console should be battery life. Sony put power at the forefront of the PSPs design and the error of that line thinking has been shown. Initially the PSP was restricted to 222mhz and there was no streaming from the UMD drive allowed. Whats the point of including a 333mhz chipset and a disk drive if they cannot be used to their full abilities?

The successor to the GBA was initially going to be similar to the PSP. Nintendo was going to use GC disks and a GC chipset, but they scrapped the design because of the effect that the chipset and disc drive had on the systems battery life. Thats how we ended up with the DS.

It probably means there's a new model coming soon, which I expect to be unveiled at E3. I pretty much think that'll be the biggest news of the event, really.

Firmware updates are standard these days for everything except the DS. Super Paper Mario on the Wii came with a required firmware update on the disc, too.

Ya I agree I think this has to do with the new one coming out.

I am not a big fan of firmware updates period. They are good idea in principle but I just have a feeling that MS, Nintendo, and Sony will end up abusing them eventually. That said, thats not my issue with the PSP. The hardware has been this capable all a long, but Sony has been forcibly restricting its power. The firmware update isn't over clocking the chip set, its allowing it to be run at its actually clock speed. Its ridiculous and the epitome of the poor design choices made with the PSP.

 Link please? And I could understand discs, but going with N64 level would be more likely, as that would cost less to make, and the GBA was a portable SNES.