December 05, 2004 - When our PSP pre-order went through on SCE official PSWorld site, we were surprised to see on the receipt that a PSP demo disc would be included with the package -- this was the first we had heard of any sampler disc being available for the PSP at launch. At the time, we were unsure if the demo would be a playable PSP sampler on a UMD disc, or else something we would have to watch on our DVD players and pretend that we were seeing on the PSP screen.

This weekend, the PSPs Sony offered in a special charity event were mailed out, and import retailer PlayAsia.com was lucky and giving enough to have won one. The demo disc was included in their package, and has turned out to be a real UMD playable on PSP -- it's only video samples and nothing playable as far as games, but the full-screen PSP video samples and helping of extra movie and music previews should give you an instant look at what the PSP has to offer and what that big, beautiful screen (once the smudges are wiped off) can give you. In addition to videos of many of the game and entertainment clips on the UMD disc, PlayAsia has a run-down of the titles on the Japanese PSP demo:

Game Videos (non-playable)

• Armored Core: Formula Front
• Doko Demo Issyo
• Hot Shots Golf
• Metal Gear Acid
• Puyo Pop Fever
• Ridge Racers
• Dynasty Warriors
• Mah-Jong Fight Club
• Ren-Goku: The Tower of Purgatory
• Gagharv Trilogy
• Talkman
• Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower
• Mojipittan

Film Previews

• Kung Fu Hustle
• Spanglish [ed.note - Huh??]
• Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse
• Hitch
• Wicker Park
• Naruto
• Sample Video (Live-action tech demo samples - Dolphins, rafting, etc.)

Music Previews

• Music Videos (J-Pop artists music samples)
  • nobodyknows+ "Kokoro Odoru"
  • Cool Joke "UNDO"
  • Juju "Cravin" [ed.note: featuring possibly the biggest hair ever seen on a Japanese girl!]

We'll have more on Demo Disc for PSP Vol.1 as soon as we're able to get our hands on one of our own next week. PlayAsia is being slammed right now for having the first impressions and videos of the system, but you can still try to check out their PSP impressions and videos, as well as our own hands-on PSP impressions as the final units slowly creep out to the public in anticipation of the system's 12/12/2004 launch.