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It looks like Sony's PSP Store promised earlier this year is coming closer to reality. This Fall in Japan gamers will be able to download content and games from the Store directly to their handheld machine.

Also in the announcement covered by IGN is news that the PS3 will be sporting a new Wi-Fi mode to support the PSP. Select PSP games that are currently ad-hoc only will be able to connect to the PS3 and be played online with additional matching and text chatting features via the PS3. It looks like the PS3 would work as a wireless bridge to let you wirelessly connect your PSP to the PS3, let your opponent connect his or her PSP to the PS3, and then run the game data across the internet while the handhelds think you're both in the same room playing in an ad-hoc mode.

This is something you can do now using a PC instead of a PS3 if you use very specific Wi-Fi dongles for your desktop or laptop that your PSP will connect to and you use the Xlink Kai free software. I'm disappointed that Sony didn't decide to blanket retrofit ad-hoc bridging if this software can do it -- or maybe they will and just slap a "your mileage may vary" sticker on that aspect of it much like how you can play some but not all types of DIVX or XviD files on your PS3 today.

I played Monster Hunter Freedom on Xlink Kai a while back with some success and still have the dongle but like all things Windows getting the PSP talking to the driver didn't always work and reinstalling the dongle's driver eventually failed entirely, leaving me without a way to play it online. Getting a rock-solid, console-based solution that would only limit what could be played in it by the effects of internet latency on the ad-hoc connection would sure be nice, so I'll keep hoping.

In the meantime, the latest Monster Hunter 2nd Portable G will be one of the first of "select games" to be able to use this new feature of the PS3 in Japan at launch.

You can see the announcement here at IGN.

From Aeropause.