September 3, 2007

Game retailers will not be receiving official TV cables for the new PSP when it launches in Britain on September 14. An official spokesman for national retail chain GAME told GamesRadar that the cable, which is needed to play PSP games on a home TV set, would not be available at launch and that it was unknown when official units would arrive. It was also revealed that there won't be any colour choices available at launch - it's black only for now, with Ceramic White (and presumably the promised Ice Silver version) to follow at an unspecified date.

It seems odd that Sony would release the new model of PSP in Blighty without letting gamers enjoy its best new feature from day one. It's worth noting that PS3 doesn't ship with an HDMI cable (unlike Xbox 360 Elite), but this isn't just a case of 'doesn't have one in the box'. Apparently they just won't be available from the get-go.

Above: The new PSP, coming to a TV near you... at some point in the future

We have also learned that there will be two versions of the cable - the first being a composite version that will let you watch media content but not play games, and the second being a component cable, which will let you see all PSP content on your TV. Yet another reason to buy a decent telly then. Incidentally, third-party cables will likely do the job just as well, although after a quick search we can't seem to find any available for preorder. GAME told us: "unfortunately we don’t have one available at the moment however it is something we are looking at for Q4". Hopefully someone will meet PSP gamers' needs.

We're still waiting for an official comment from Sony at the time of writing.