New PSP does NOT have shorter battery life

SCEA’s hardware marketing director John Koller has released a statement correcting

claims he made earlier in the week

regarding that battery life of the firm’s upcoming PSP 3000.

On Monday he stated that the machine’s brighter screen would reduce its operating time by up to 30 minutes – however, a statement on the Official PlayStation blog says:

There have been reports about the battery life of the new PSP system being shorter than the current model, following an interview we recently did with Gamespot. I’d like to make a correction and clarify that the new PSP will have equivalent battery life to the current PSP, about four to six hours for games and about four to five hours for UMD videos.

While the enhanced screen of the new PSP draws a little more power, our engineers in Japan worked to reduce the power consumption of the overall system including its components, so you won’t have to worry about losing any time when enjoying the more vibrant visuals displayed with the new PSP. We hope this clears everything up.”

The newly fashioned handheld is due out in the UK on October 17th, and will cost 149.99.