Playboy Steps Up To PSP Plate

Author: by David Jenkins, Simon Carless

Officials from Playboy Enterprises have announced that the company will offer nude and non-nude photo galleries that have been specifically formatted for viewing on the PSP, taking advantage of the open movie and image viewing capabilities of Sony's handheld. Two non-nude galleries of fifteen photos, as well as a two to three minute video feature featuring 2005's Cyber Girl of the Year Amy Sue Cooper will be available free on Playboy.com for download to a Memory Stick Pro Duo PSP memory card. Only subscribers to the site's "Cyber Club" will have access to the nude shots, which will also be available in two nude galleries and one video. "We know that many Playboy fans are also gaming enthusiasts who are likely to buy this type of device, so it was a natural progression for us to design this," said John. D. Thomas, editor of Playboy.com. The move may be more significant than it might first appear, as this shows the ability of larger media companies to use the PSP's memory stick for targeted movie and image content, regardless of whether Sony approves of it. Indeed, for better or worse, the pornography industry has often been at the forefront of online business and if Playboy’s experiments prove successful then other companies may also be tempted to provide more content formatted specifically for the PSP. Playboy has already been expanding its digital and gaming-related reach recently, with the release of the Playboy: The Mansion video game and a gallery of video game stars previously featured in various states of undress in a 2004 issue of Playboy magazine.