Important Importables: PSP peripherals

While the DS has won fans the world over with its unusual gimmicks and touching interactive games, the PSP is getting love for its mature games and practical applications. Rather than trying to beat the DS by making the PSP appear even more foolish with strange extras, developers have decided to take the higher road.

With its peripherals the PSP tries to make itself more useful in everyday life. There are no card readers or additional controllers here. Rather than relying on gimmicks, the add-ons are ingenious items that you don’t even realize you need until you see what they can do.

And while the DS add-ons are designed to work only with games, the PSP’s are designed to make life in the real world easier or more interesting. Even when the extras don’t work as well as they claim, they still deserve points for trying.

Sadly, all of the following extras are only available overseas. It is a tragedy, because each add-on could be immensely useful to PSP owners the world over. All of the extras in Japan allow the PSP to act as a translator, camera, television and GPS unit…