A few days ago I put out a call to arms: tell me good things about Sony, Playstation, and the PSP.

My strongest personality trait, after anger and enthusiasm, is oppositionalism, and I'm getting itchy about the unified anti-Sony front that the games media is presenting as of late. I want to be different, damn it. I want to be happy about all, or at least some things Playstation. And I asked for your help, my sweet readers.

I cannot say that the response was overwhelming. I received a total of six emails, some of them from the same several writers. I will allow that some may have been trapped in filters or lost in the sea of t-shirt embroidery spam in the tips mailbox, but I kept my eyes peeled.

For your enjoyment, I present to you the scrapings from my good news dragnet. Please contribute your own to the comments, or email me directly. I will call these Sony-related bonbons "Butternut Dumplings" now and forever, for no particular reason.

Follow me into the land of optimism!

Butternut Dumpling #1 - RUMOR: PaRappa Coming to PSP
This was sent in by Dominic. QJ.net reports that PaRappa the Rappa is looking at a PSP iteration in the near future, citing a Famitsu article, but no press releases or official word have surfaced yet. I followed the crumb trail to a german blog, where the first comment cracked me up: "Oh mein Gott, neeiiiiin." The objections of some random commentor aside, this is a fun rumor.

Butternut Dumpling #2 - Region Free
William wrote in to say: "The bruises heal after time, and there are plenty of excuses that easily explain everything (I play sports now). All I need to do to wash away the sadness, is whisper a mantra I created: 'Region free, Region free, oh god please don't get rid of my region free.'"

Butternut Dumpling #3 - 1 Million Units by December 31st
Dominic wrote in again to add: "Dave Karraker, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at SCEA, says that there will be 1-1.2 million PS3 units available in NA by December 31. He doesn't seem to deny Kutaragi's figure of 400,000 at launch but says there will be a million or so by December 31."

He linked to this IGN article, which is an interview with Dave Karraker, the Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Sony Computer Entertainment America. This Dumpling assures us that there will be enough PS3s to go around very shortly after launch, and that is everyone would just quit shoving, we can all have a PS3 in a reasonable amount of time.

Butternut Dumpling #4 - the PS2 is Still One Bad Mutha
Figment writes that even though he is "halfway to being a Nintendo fanboy", he has recently been seriously considering the purchase of a PS2. He cites the release of games such as Okami, Disgaea 2, and Final Fantasy XII as the succubi that have tempted him thus, and says "All of these together show that even an older system like the ps2 is,
in many ways, a contender in the next-gen market as well, because with
a low price and games like these (easily over 150 hours of gameplay
here), you have to at least give sony a little credit!"

Well said, Figment, and I'm inclined to agree.

Butternut Dumpling #5 - Piracy and Homebrew via DVD-R
Jay wrote me to point that the PS3 will play DVD-Rs, leading Jay to assume that the pirate community should be rejoicing. I'm not sure if it's really as easy as burning a PS2 iso and popping in the disk, but it's probably not that much harder, either. The pirates and modders are well abreast of every new PSP update, and it's not a stretch to imagine that they'll be right there with us on the PS3.

Other things I heard about, but that weren't quite Dumplings on their own: the longevity of the PS2 (one guy said he had a launch unit that's played 3 hours of games every day since then and is in perfect shape), and Dragon's Lair joining Warhawk as a tilt-sensitive launch title.

I personally haven't touched my DS in months, preferring instead the sleek brick of awesome that is my PSP. Syphon Filter, Ultimate Ghosts n' Goblins, and Loco Roco are my constant companions.

Add your own little nuggets of joy to the comments, yeah? Indulge me. Eliza Gauger