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Sony PSP to become huge online comic store | Home Cinema Choice

Using the Sony PSP to read digital comics seems like a great idea. I’ve yet to find a platform that actually does this particular job properly (my desktop is littered with downloaded .cbr/.cbz readers) and the PSP might well be the answer. However there seem to be some super-powered hurdles to overcome when it comes to access and content.
The video trailer for the service (click the link above to find it) is clearly focused on manga titles and I can imagine that the Japanese comic industry is well placed to migrate to this kind of content delivery. Japanese publishers have been delivering digital comics to mobile phones for years. Europe holds some promise. Personally I’ve no interest in Euro comics – I’ve read enough Tintin and Asterix to keep me going for years – but 2000AD is already available to UK subscribers via an iPhone app, so that mag would be an ideal early contender. But it’s not enough for the concept to gain traction. What the PSP would need is one of the big American publishers to sign on. DC seems like a non-starter; it doesn’t offer its books on any digital platform. Rival Marvel looks better placed and already makes some of its archive and some new books available for an annual subscription payment. I also really like its format and the Smart Panel technology it uses makes reading on a small screen a breeze. But Marvel’s offering is baffling in the extreme. I’ve looked at its proposition many times and still can’t tell if it makes all its current books available to subscribers. I suspect it doesn’t. Even worse, you can’t download anything. Which means you can only read when you have access to an internet connection. Which is kinda crazy. This also seems to be the case with the PSP proposal. Personally, I want to read comics when I’m out and about, when commuting, when on holiday, during lunchtimes etc. Until there’s a digital platform which lets me do that, it looks like I’m gonna stick with print on paper.