Gamers of a certain age will remember the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality. It was a little mark placed on official Nintendo products in the NES/SNES era (well, that’s when it mattered) that let buyers know that, yes, this product has been blessed by Nintendo. It will not harm you, your cat or your NES. Fast-forward several years and now Sony has gotten into the business of slapping their logo on officially licensed gear with the “Official Licensed Product” gimmick.

I’m not sure I think this is such a good idea, Sony. A PSP crossed with one of Sony-Ericsson’s phones probably wouldn’t enjoy hybrid vigor, seeing as neither device is exactly best in breed. I mean, they’re both fine for what they are, but let’s be honest: they’re generally overpriced and only sport the most basic features.

I’m afraid I don’t trust you guys to make a successful crossover device, although you’re welcome to try. Er…continue to try. Just remember what the N-Gage did to Nokia.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will make its way to the PSP and PSP Go this fall. It’ll be available on UMD for PSP owners and in downloadable form on the PlayStation Network in both North America and Europe.

In an interview with The Times Online, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick made it very clear that if Sony does not lower the price of the PS3 then the games publisher will cease support for the console.

Here’s some new PSP Go info in case anyone wants to know. There will be three new features on the Go that aren’t available on the PSP-3000: Game sleep function, Bluetooth function, clock and calendar application. And PSP Euro Product Manager Adam Grant says the Go will have 3 to 6 hours of battery life for gameplay and 3 to 5 for videos. Hit the jump for details on the aforementioned features.

Quick and easy: Sony says that “that just about everything hitting after October 1 will be available for download.” That’s for the PSP Go!, mind you.

The question that has been on everyone’s minds regarding the PSP Go (”Um, what do I do with all my games that I bought) has been answered, though somewhat vaguely. John Koller, Sony’s Director of Hardware Marketing, said that there will be a system in place for people to get their UMD-based games onto their PSP Go. No, you won’t be ripping the UMDs directly; Koller suggested it would be similar to how you’d get Blu-ray movies onto your PSP.

In all likelihood it’ll be free, although it will probably also have the kind of crippling DRM you’d expect from a system like this. Hey, at least they’re making it possible.

We’re skimp on details until we hit the Nyko booth, but we have images of Nyko’s upcoming accessories for this year. They all seem to be pretty straightforward. So without further ado, I present to you the DSi Zoom Case, PSP Charge Grip Flex, and the Wii Type Pad Pro. There’s the Speakercom 360, but there aren’t any images of it yet. No release dates or prices have been announced, but we’re told that they are coming out this year.

It’s the rumor that refuses to go away: the next Sony PSP. Well, E3 is next week, thank God, and you should absolutely expect to see it, henceforth referred to as the PSP Go!, debut at Sony’s press conference. It will be UMD-less (you can hear developers cheering), and possibly cheaper. That, and the slimmed down PS3 is real, too.

Let’s not jump the gun, but a survey released by TNS Interactive hints that Sony might be considering a subscription-based game download rental service. Proposed pricing for a month would be $20 with a yearly subscription of $50 or $13 for a week. It’s just a survey and basically means nothing at this point, but would you be down for renting PSP games?

Looks like Sony wants to marry the PSP to a music service of some sort, à la iTunes or Rhapsody. That’s what “music industry sources” say, at least. And if there’s anyone more trustworthy than someone in the music industry I don’t want to meet them

Remember this day. Today is the day that you saw the future of GPS navigation. Tele Atlas has partnered with Norway-based BLOM to provide photorealistic maps to personal navigation devices. So far only 40 cities in Europe have been ported to the service, but many more are scheduled to be released in the coming quarters. Soon the days of having basic 3D boxes to represent buildings will be gone and an actual picture will be there instead.

Sony has just announced a brand spankin’ new LE Entertainment Pack for the Final Fantasy fans. It will be an exclusive pack to Gamestop that comes with a “Mystic Silver” PSP-3000, Dissidia Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children on UMD and a 2GB memory stick. Get yours for $200 starting on August 25th at Gamestops across the US.

On a side note, Nicholas and I will be attending a screening of Advent Children on Tuesday in NYC. Jealous?

We have visual confirmation that firmware 5.03 has been successfully hacked, and will run emulators. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the exploit hasn’t been released yet, and you’re just going to have to wait patiently to play Dig Dug (or do it here).

It’s certainly short, but the gameplay footage from Namco’s upcoming Soul Calibur title for the PSP gives us just enough to keep us intrigued. Anyone excited for Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny?