PSP testing tool surfaces on eBay
By Donald Melanson 
posted March 12th 2009 7:38PM
posted March 12th 2009 7:38PM
Looking to add to your collection of video game ephemera you'll never actually use? Then you might want to get bidding on this PSP testing tool that's just surfaced on eBay and, as of this writing, hasn't yet met the reserve price. In addition to the main desktop unit, you'll also get a PSP test unit (with one dead pixel) and, of course, all the necessary cables to get things up and running -- and, judging from the pics, it does appear to run just fine. Not a whole lot of details beyond that, unfortunately, but the unit (a DTP-H1500 A, specifically) does appear to at least play UMDs, and it even includes a wireless antenna on the rear. Hit up the read link below to get your bid in.
Reserve not met? At $0.01? Absurd. I shall bid... $0.02!
Bid is now $1,400 and climbing.
lol UMD, what a joke
Why is it a joke? I bet no one said Nintendo cartridges were a joke.
Cartridges have no moving parts or scratchable surfaces. They can withstand higher and lower temperatures along with the capacity to be dropped without shattering bits of data.
Alright then BigD145, hope you're enjoying using floppy disks 'cause CDs are so gosh-darn fragile...
Floppy Disks have moving parts too, Einstein.
interesting..
a computer
with UMD!
i mean its sooooooo much more convenient then a optical drive that can burn/play cds and can burn / play dvds
Remember the MiniDisc? Sony had MD drives for their VAIO computers.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/20010912/sony02.jpg
http://www.minidisc.org/images/vaio_buildinmd.jpg
My brother totally had a MD player way back in the day. What a LMAO!
Actually, thats a devkit, and the drive is a DVD drive, not a UMD drive. The developers burn their test image on a DVD to run it in the devkit.
I had MD. I don't get what is so funny. That thing was awesome. I guess you think mp3 players have been around for ever.
My father still uses his MD Player for radio recordings. why replace it when it works? He can edit on the fly (since it is a magnetic disc and not a tape nor a optical media) and it is easy to take with you. DAT had better quality, but was a tape and it sucked with its DRM and its price.
@ishism: I had an MD player (Panasonic) too! I was so close to buying a Sony VAIO laptop that had an MD drive.
I also managed to record the entire "War and Peace" onto just 4 MDs for my dad's friend's wife. MDLP FTW!
MD was and at last check a still is a very popular format in Japan that never caught on in the USA. The technology it uses is very similar to the LS120 and LS240 Superdisk drives from the dot.com/Y2K era.
I wonder if you could put CFW on this...
You don't need to
You can't.
Will it play Quake?
does DA need this?
Does Chris need this?
Amazing the attention to detail that Sony puts into a development box! If only they put that energy into thinking ahead into what the consumers want from their products and leaving out the proprietary media formats!
You guys are terrible. Every time Engadget posts something cool on the site, the item is deleted for violating some weird eBay terms no one's ever heard of and NOBODY WINS IT!
eBay is already a ripoff. Nobody wins. (except eBay)
This will be taken down pretty quick...
Can't sell these things. Technically not ever, although nobody bothers doing anything if it's some system that's been dead 20 years. But Sony (and MS, and Nintendo, and Sega before) tightly regulates who has debug units, mostly because they don't want stuff being reverse-engineered. The whole point of these things is that they can play *anything*. They don't have any of the security checks that retail systems do.
This guy should have looked at the agreement he signed when he got this...
LOL. This is SO old. I saw one of these 2 years ago. Sold for about $1000.
That is redonk-elous
I'm pretty sure that PSP is just a shell with a screen and buttons, it's tethered to the computer and it says controller on the back.
@RioRyan
I can tell that youre right as i work in a games testing company. Hopefully that one isnt't stolen from us...
And yes, these things are leased from Sony and are property of Sony - So you can't just go and sell them like you want.
All Sony testing tools are the property of Sony. Companies just lease them and there's a big fat agreement that says that they have to give them back when they're done or if Sony asks. That means that this is either stolen, or someone's breaching, in which case Sony usually tries to buy it, does a lookup on the serial number (to see who it's leased to) and goes after them... fun fun fun!
The Mac address is clearly displayed on the screen... that might be ebough?
Does it have a PSP emulator?
I think the better question is, "Can it emulate a PSP emulator?"
aren't these called devkits nowadays?
No, this is just a test unit. The DevKit is pretty much identical though.
oooooh. well what's the difference exactly?
Devkit'll probably include this unit, an SDK and a UMD burner
@netdroid9:
Devkits don't have UMD burners. You submit your game on a DVD and Sony does the UMD signing/mastering.
I've got a couple recommendations for you Engadget when you post ebay items...
1) at the very least, can you put an update line at the end of the post with the final details of the auction? (final bid, reserve met/not met, pulled, etc?). I look at those past links and I have no idea what that DC zip drive went for or if some idiot really bought the sega CD dev controller...
2) better than the above would be to save the whole ebay page when it closes.
Clear sign that Sony has abandoned UMD. Bring it Sony. Give us a PSP without the ghosting screen, better contrast, and no UMD. We don't need that wasteful disc spinning. Memory card or downloads.
current bid $700....
some people really want to have it.
Sony?
"In addition to the main desktop unit, you'll also get a PSP test unit (with one dead pixel)"
well of course with a dead pixel.......it wouldnt be a psp without the dead pixel.....well a psp-1000 anyways....
something like this happened like a year ago
sony quickly took it off ebay though
Man, Minidisc was so awesome. Superior to a Cassette Walkman and more compact/shock resistant than a CD Player.
I still have my MD player and a stash of Minidiscs upstairs somewhere, remote control cable too. Good times...
Gah! Endadget! Fix these comments!
When I click 'Reply', it usually means I want to reply to a certain post, not have my response shove to the bottom of the bloody page, losing it's place and context!
And yet again it fails to reply properly!
Now, I bet this one does, just to be an awkward shit.
having worked with one of these.. what a piece of JUNK!!!
I used one of these a few years ago. The test unit can play games from a DVD. When testing daily builds there's no point in burning UMDs. The game runs off the DVD and once the Gold Master is released it gets put on a UMD by Sony.