At the Playstation event held in Mumbai, Sony India announced the launch of PSP-3000 in the Indian market, along with announcing its plan to roll out the 80 GB Sony PS3 console in the near future.

Priced at Rs 9,440, the PSP-3000, supporting Wi-Fi connection, plays the same games and offers the same media support as the older PSP models. Sony has upgraded the system with a highly-improved LCD screen and a new built-in microphone. The response time has doubled in speed, and will help eliminate ghosting or blurring during gameplay and video playback.

Country Manager for Sony Computer Entertainment, Atindriya Bose, said that there was huge scope for the company amongst the Indian audience, more so with the introduction of the newly designed PSP - 3000. Divulging into its features, Bose added: “It has an advanced LCD viewing, which further improves the very popular, high resolution PSP display along with a built-in microphone, which brings a new dimension of gaming to the overall entertainment experience.”

Though Sony claims the PSP-3000 will have the same battery life as the PSP-2000, the vivid, ghost-free screen does draw more power than the old screen. According to John Koller, Sony director of hardware marketing, the new screen will reduce battery life “by about 20 minutes.”

In fact, Sony engineers have reduced the power draw from other system components to make up the difference and ensure that battery life remains the same for both gameplay and UMD video playback.