There’s real work to be done today of course, but we couldn’t help trying out the new PSP firmware update that includes, at last, a Flash plugin for the web browser.

This post will evolve throughout the day as we continue experimenting.

Current impression: promising!

Notes in chronological order:

• In order to actually install the update you are required to have a mostly-full battery — plugging the PSP in is not sufficient.

• After installing the update, you must explicitly enable the Flash plugin support, not from within the prowser, but as a system setting. Settings –> System Settings –> Enable Flash Player.

• Exactly what version do we have here? We found out by going straight to Adobe’s version-check swf, and the answer was… 6,0,72,27.

• Next stop? Our own homepage of course. We know that the Flash elements here require Flash 7 or higher, but we tried anyway. SWFObject successfully offers up the alternative content we provide (text menu, jpeg banner.) When we bypass these by going straight to the Presstube banner swf it seems like it might work, but doesn’t. No surprise, but would have made a good picture.

• What popular Flash site is all but guaranteed to work with Flash 6 or below? Homestarrunner! We successfully navigate the interface (animations are a bit choppy but functional) and when we fire up the latest Strongbad email, the first few frames come up just fine. But before we can get the camera focused, our fears are realized: out of memory error.

• Well who cares, we can still take HR with us as a podcast, right? So on to some games. We need a simple game to start with, one that required a mouse only, since it’s not yet clear how we’d handle anything requiring a keyboard. We head over to Ferry Halim’s Orisinal games collection and choose the first game: Bugs. Seems just about perfect. To ensure correct scaling on the PSP screen we load the swf directly again. First impressions are promising: here’s a picture of the game on PowerBook and PSP simultaneously:

The game is also completely functional:

…but it runs at about one frame per second, so it’s not actually any fun. Maybe we’d better look for a puzzle game…

• How about Sudoku? Again we load the swf on its own. We don’t get very far — the “enter your name” screen is the end of our fun here.

Interestingly, when we click on the text entry field, it does invoke the PSP’s text widget. But whatever we type fails to appear in the box afterward, so the ‘continue’ button is never activated, so we’re done. We note some other issues with the above image, such as the button labels not appearing. But then we finally check the page source and realize this SWF is meant for Flash 8, so it isn’t a fair test. Oops.

• We find a site called Truantduck Games whose work claims to require only Flash 6. We choose Chinese Checkers, which says it will even run under Flash 5. And the results: out of memory error.

• Clearly we’re aiming too high. What about Flash Lite games? The first few we find online don’t seem promising because they’re played with the arrow keys, not a mouse! But we try a simple example anyway: Justin Everett-Church’s “Aces High” game. And… it works! After clicking on the SWF to give it focus, the D-pad works just like the arrow keys on a keyboard.

Now we’re getting somewhere…

• OK, we have to get back to work for a while. If you find any existing Flash work that functions well on the PSP, or work targeted specifically to the PSP, please share the links and we’ll try them out later!

• One more tip for anyone experimenting with their own SWFs — you can use the PSP browser to access offline files. Just dump them in the root directory of your Memory Stick and use the file:/ address prefix to access them. This should save you a step when you’re running tests, and ultimately allow us all to collect the games that do work for offline play!

• Oh, and the PSP’s native screen resolution is 480×272 — and because the browser has no visible “chrome” when in use, you can use the full resolution for your SWFs.

• Richard Leggett has run some more sensible performance tests and gotten better results. This is promising. As noted in a comment below, we think content optimized for this system will be amazing; it’s random web surfing that was initially disappointing. Here’s to dedicated, optimized Flash for the PSP!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 9:08 am and is filed under Culture, Meta, Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.