PSP owners the world over look at upgraded firmware as either a blessing or a curse. I stand firmly in the "blessing" camp.

The homebrew crowd will upgrade for the new features, albeit doubtfully, but version 2.8 represents a step in the right direction for the rest of us. Today's upgrade brought with it very useful features, and two game demos.

Well, one game demo for people in the U.S. If you live in Europe, you can nab the World Tour Soccer 2 demo from the YourPSP site. The other demo, Mercury Meltdown, is (surprise surprise) only available in Japanese. But just like the LocoRoco demo, it is quite easy to install and run on a U.S. PSP.

When will Sony release these demos in the U.S., and in English? This marks the second time we have had to jump through hoops to play the demos. This is something the PSP could do without, especially right now. Are you listening Sony of America?

Mercury Meltdown has an entirely new graphic style from the first game, and the demo shows that the game play has improved since the original. The trailer for the game should not be missed.

New features in the PSP Firmware version 2.8 include:

• You can now download video and image content under [RSS Channel]. Podcasts were a great addition before, now in 2.8 there is support for most video podcasts too.
• You can now register devices via a wireless LAN access point under [LocationFree™ Player].
• You can now play AAC files with the .3gp file extension.
• Support for the playback of content stored in [MUSIC], [PICTURE] and [VIDEO] folders at the root level of Memory Stick Duo™ media has been added. This means a human can now name a video file, add it to the VIDEO folder, and play it on the PSP. MPEG-4 video for the iPod now works on the PSP with no transcoding needed.
• [Automatic] has been added as an option under [Network Settings] > [Infrastructure Mode].

I really enjoy being able to name my videos normally, without some arcane syntax. Game demo folders still use the old folder naming convention, however. They obviously did not put any effort into updating that this time around.

And I already have a dozen or so video podcast feeds setup on my PSP, a wonderful feature as I do not have a video iPod. As incremental as some of these firmware upgrades are, they have all provided extended functionality — and that is why I look forward to them.