Rejoice initially, fiddle with it, then figure out how you like it over the next few days. At least, that has been my experience so far with the rereleased PlayStation Store for PC, which has been offline for some overhaul work. The result is a new store interface that looks a lot more like the stores found on the PS3 and PSP. Not only that, the store on PC is now integrated into Sony’s Media Manager for PSP 3.0 software. Don’t worry, Media Manager 3.0 is free to download (http://store.playstation.com), unlike previous versions in the US. The main draw of this software for me is the advertised ability to transfer bought videos for storage onto my PC when my MemoryStick is running low. Sadly, I’m not yet sure if that’s something I’ll be doing yet.

I immediately met problems. My first install failed for some reason, but no biggie. I finally got the program running after a couple tries and synced up my PSP, only to find that the program couldn’t locate most of my PSP’s files, not game saves, not videos I have bought, not music. The only thing I could access were my PSP’s bookmarks. Not very useful. The Store, on the other hand, appears to work just fine. The layout is almost identical to the most recent version of the PS3 Store, except that the icons for items appear low-res and somewhat pixilated.

With the release of PSP v5.00 and direct PS Store access, the only reason I can see for using the PC PS Store is to rent or buy videos, a function unavailable to the PS Store on PSP. Or, perhaps if one were in a Wi-Fi-less area, the PC store would be the only option, and I guess that really is the point, to provide options. Hopefully they’re able to work out the kinks in the software with future updates, that are, hopefully, free as well.

I don’t have much to say about this one really, since functionally, the added Playstation Store access on the PSP is pretty much identical to the PS3 one. It looks mostly the same as the image on the right too, except for the large Hot Shots Golf image which, in real life, is actually a new releases list, in text.

Still, there is something to be said about not having to use my PC to get content on my PSP anymore. It was just so much of a hassle to browse the PC Playstation Store, look for something interesting, ask to download it, attach the PSP to the PC, download, install, etc. This was especially true in the case of game trailers and videos. I mean, if I’m on my PC, why don’t I just watch the video on my PC from some place like Gametrailers.com, which is streaming video and a lot faster.

With Playstation Store on PSP, I can see that there is going to be a huge boom in content downloaded just because it’s infinitely more convenient. The store interface is easy and fast to use, downloading is direct, what more could one ask for?

Well, one thing. Unfortunately, it seems that for some reason or another, the Video portion of the store, containing all the movies and TV shows for rental and purchase, is simply not available on the Playstation Store on PSP. I imagine it has something to do with licensing issues related to the movie companies, so it should be added some time in the future when that’s all worked out. Sadly, this means that people who just own PSP’s can’t get movies right now at all, due to the maintenance also being done on the PC version of the store, which is scheduled to reopen later this month.

Despite these issues, I’m loving it and have downloaded more stuff onto my PSP in the last day than I’ve done in the lifetime of the handheld. Anyone else tried this thing out?

Just as the title says, now we can see it action. From the Playstation Blog: