Former Sony Entertainment President Chris Deering has recently dished out two pieces of fascinating gossip about Sony development for those interested in the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" points in the company's history. The first such program was a social networking platform for the PSOne ala Facebook or MySpace.

We had a secret test program in Europe back in 1997 on PSOne, running a black and white text-based, moderator-led community chat group with a special box called 'Net-Station' that hooked up PCs to the TV. Nick Parker ran it. The project codename was 'Moccasin 5'. I have no idea where it came from.

Should Video Game Patents Be Legal?

The US Patent and Trademark Office has taken a much more vague approach to determining what may or may not be patented. Its guidelines for patent examiners requires that the invention produce a concrete, useful, and tangible result, and gameplay patents are being allowed.

A pair of PSone classics that my be coming soon to the PlayStation Store—then ultimately to PSP and PlayStation 3—have been rated by the ESRB. Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha and Ubisoft's Rayman were recently added to the software ratings board's database. Unlike some of the ratings for Wii Virtual Console games, the turnaround time for ESRB ratings to become additions to the PlayStation Store is generally fairly quick, but we have no details yet on when these games will see re-release.

ESRB Game Ratings

Japanese PlayStation Store Kicks Every Other Store's Ass

A new batch of original PlayStation games has been added to the Japanese version of the PlayStation Store which features plenty of enviously available big names amid the Japan-only fare. The biggest PSone Classics to make their way to PSPs and PlayStation 3s are Biohazard 2 (aka Resident Evil 2) and Intelligent Qube, both of which would be welcome additions to the North American and European stores. Just sayin', SCEA. The full list of newbies is below.

• Biohazard 2
• Intelligent Qube
• PoPoLoCrois Monogatari II
• Crime Crackers 2
• Atelier Marie Plus
• Tantei Junguji Saburo Early Collection
• Magical Drop
• Baroque
• Robin Lloyd no Bouken

PlayStation Store (JP) [PlayStation]

Rumor has it that the latest firmware updates for the PSP and PS3 have allowed playing of all PSOne discs on the Playstation Portable via the PS3 using remote play.

I haven't been able to check PSOne disc based games, because I can't find a single one, but we do have readers reporting in that they work on the system via Remote Play. In a bit of unwarranted exuberance I decided to see if any PS2 games would play via Remote Play, and the answer remains no. I did test out some PSOne games I had downloaded from the Playstation Store and they all seemed to work fine.

Another neat feature I noticed is that you can now assign which buttons do what on your PSP while in Remote Play meaning Lair should finally work if you want to play it remotely... and still own it.

Comment here if you can get your PSOne discs to work via Remote Play.

Update: SCEA just got back to us to confirm the rumors: "I can confirm that with today's firmware release, some PlayStation games can be inserted into PS3 and played via Remote Play on PSP." Sweet!

psx4all PS Emulator for iPhone Is Almost Complete

iPhone owners will soon have more to look forward to than their standard, day-to-day walking around like they're better than everyone else. Because psx4all, a PlayStation emulator for the iPhone, will be entering beta testing any day now. Promising to play around 75% of PSOne titles, there is definitely some work to be done on the touch controls (as seen in this photo), but from what the developer says, those nasty-looking outlines are quite different than what we'll see in the final product.

Only donors of the developer's last projects will be invited to the early beta, but we'll keep an eye out for the final release so you can spend your time worrying about other things, like "do these shoes look good with this phone, or do I need to burn them immediately?"

[psx4all NEWS] Playstation has arrived on the iPhone and iPod Touch! [via infiniteloop]

An Extensive Look At Resident Evil 1.5

We've seen screen shots and video of Capcom's aborted Resident Evil 2 before, but nothing this extensive, and certainly not this long. The PlayStation Museum's walk through of many of the shelved sequel's areas provide a better look at what we could have been given instead of the proper, and arguably much better, final version of Resident Evil 2. Ten minutes of Leon S. Kennedy and Elza Walker await you above, with a proper preview of the prototype at the link below.

Resident Evil 2 Prototype (aka Resident Evil 1.5) [PlayStation Museum]

It looks like Sony finally stoked the fires hot enough to boil the water to make the steam to run the engine that is PSN. Because starting this October, Sony is doubling their monthly PSOne game updates in Japan. That means users will be getting two updates a month—hopefully not with just half the games each. While the effect has yet to trickle down to the US market, we'll be waiting. Right here.

Hit the jump for the full list of classics coming today to Japan. King's Field III may be a necessary download. I purchased my original Playstation just to play King's Field II, but was lured in by the Twisted Metal series and never got around to it. Yeah...I played a lot of TM2...

Attendees at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival were witness to a prime example of spin control and knowing your audience.

Former SEE boss Chris Deering did a bit of dub work on the truth by using the price of beer to prove that the Playstation 3 is in fact cheaper than the original Playstation was when it was released.

"In terms of the number of pints of beer you have to forego to get a PS3 it's really just the same as the number of pints of beer you had to forego to get a PS1 back in 1995".

And the math checks out, according to Spong. The Deering Beers Scale proves that you could purchase a PS3 and nearly three beers for the cost of a PSOne. Whoever figured that out for Deering deserves a raise, in Guinness.

PlayStation 3 Cheaper Than PSOne In Beer [Spong]

PlayStation Store Update: Symphony of the Night

Downloadable PSone Games Playable On PS3 In May

PS3 1.70 Firmware Out, Adds Downloadable PSone Game Support

Japan Got Some New PSone Games For PSP, World Shrugs

Latest PS3 Firmware Hits, Fixes BC Graphical Issues

What's On Deck For The PlayStation Store? This!

PS3 Launch Outsells Xbox 360 Launch

MediEvil Hits PlayStation Store

Japanese Get New PSone Games For PSP