Parlez-vous Talkman Travel? Interactive Travel Guide Coming to PSP

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The PlayStation Portable is great for making a long plane or car ride go by faster. Starting this Thursday, Talkman Travel transforms your PSP into an indispensible tool once you reach your destination.

Talkman Travel map

Talkman Travel serves as an interactive pocket tour guide for tourists traveling to Tokyo, Paris or Rome. This will really help you “break the ice” with the locals in each of the destinations, with accurate linguistic support in Japanese, French or Italian.

So how does Talkman Travel help you in these world cities?

Talkman Travel Tokyo

How do you say???

For those of you who didn’t take your foreign language classes seriously, Talkman Travel comes to your rescue.

For each of the titles, Talkman Travel provides you a list of roughly 150 pre-selected phrases tourists are likely to use on their vacations. Sentences such as “Where is the tourist information desk?” or “Where is this restaurant?” or even “Where is the restroom?” All sentences can be translated into the respective languages at the push of a button. Push the button again, and the PSP will provide the audio for you as well. Suggested sentences are provided for likely situations involving dining, sightseeing and shopping.

Talkman Travel Rome

Pictures

Along with the linguistic support, Talkman Travel contains pre-selected photo archives targeted at the likely interests for tourists traveling to Tokyo, Paris or Rome. Each of the photos are also accompanied by detailed descriptions of their significance.

Talkman Travel Rome

Pick-up lines

Okay, maybe this sounds a little bit cheesy, but you never know.

We have kept the phrases to a reasonable level (to keep you out of trouble) with suggested phrases such as “May I sit next to you?” or “Let’s take a picture together!” Use of these phrases along with the mini-games included in Talkman Travel, could possibly bring you closer to that cute girl or guy you just saw at the cafe in Paris, the gardens in Tokyo, or near that pizzeria in Rome.

Mini-games

There are a total of three mini-games that can be played with yourself and with a local you just met. Use them in conjunction with the pick-up lines explained above!

In a nutshell, Talkman Travel is an interactive pocket tour guide and an awesome communication tool for the jet set traveller. This is an experience you just can’t get from a standard tourist guide book!

Talkman Travel comes to the PSN this Thursday, August 7th at $5.99 per city.

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68 Comments

16 Author Replies

  • I have to say… that’s pretty dang cool. It’s a whole new space of functionality for the PSP!

  • haha thats awesome…..a pocket-sized tour guide with foreign pick-up lines…..hahaha

    So is this also like a gps thing?

  • hey…question…can we buy a wireless card-like accessory for the PSP so we don’t have to be in a hot spot all the time?

    either way…this is hot. i use my psp a lot and this is just another cool way to help do that.

  • wow…just wow….lol…so you buy it here before you head there and bam…..

  • this sounds pretty good just wonder how much this is going to cost us

  • Only available for 3 cities is a big limitation, but otherwise seems to be a very cool new use for your PSP.

    Am I correct to assume more cities will be added as time goes on?

    • We have made the three cities Tokyo, Paris and Rome available.

      We\’ll just have to see how things go with the first three for now.

      Personally, I\’d love to add to the collection!

  • Very cool idea, and yet another way the PSP becomes more than just a gaming system. I’ve said it all along, the PSP does it all!!

  • Tsubasa, will Max be featured in the program?

    • Thanks for remembering MAX.
      He\’s a great character isn\’t he?

      Unfortunately, this version of Talkman Travel does not feature MAX. Sorry!!!

  • Looks good but how much is going to be?

  • It would be nice for people to be allowed to make their own and be able to share. For example, a person could make one for Spain, and people could download it.

  • mmmmm…. Shuba Shuba…

    gghlhlghll…(homer simpson drool sound)

    This is really cool! I just got a National Geographic guide to Thailand and Hong Kong for an upcoming trip….

    if this program can help me out in either of those places i just might have to finally buy a PSP! I hope customs doesn’t seize it when i fly out or in, since they just changed the laws regarding international electronic device seizure. (which totally sucks!)

    Jeff, you travel alot, have they ever said you couldn’t bring a laptop or PSP or ipod on board with you when you travel internationally?

    thanks for this intriguing post!

    PSN id: FritoZ

    • I\’ve never had a problem, and I absolutely will be bringing this to Japan for Tokyo Game Show. \”Take me to your Shabu Shabu!!\”

  • Can I get dirty-trucker slang as downloadable content?

    What about jokes for all kind of social events?

  • Pretty damn cool!

  • Eternity_Viper_Snake

    thats freaking assome :) now just gotta find vacation money to go to those cities LOL….i have an idea how about you do a map quest portable you know like tom tom it could be called like Psp quest or Psp maps something of that sort would or could that be possible? just a thought but great work though… ;)

  • LOL at the pick up lines, last thing I would ever do is whip out my PSP to hit on someone foreign or not. It’s good though that you guys added that. If I ever travel (I’ve seen most of the world already) to places I haven’t been Talkman travel will def go with me.

    • Yes, I must admit some of those lines are cheesy, but at the end of the day, if this can spark up a conversation, what have you got to loose, right!?

  • Thank you all for your posts so far!

    I’m glad you like the concept.
    It was really fun working on this project, and putting things together.

    Just to clarify, each city will be made available on the PSN at $5.99.

    Hey, you are likely to be taking your PSP for the long flight out.
    You might as well pick this up if you are traveling to Tokyo, Paris or Rome!

  • Oh and the blog had a down page a while ago, any cool features we should know about? (Sorry for going off-topic)

  • PSP with Pick Up lines!! International pick up lines at that! That’s awesome.

  • Are you going to expand this to cover other big cities like Rio or Sao Paulo, Brazil? I could’ve used something like this for Portuguese when I was visting the inlaws there.

  • Eternity_Viper_Snake

    sorry :( to double post and off topic sort of is there going to be an adapter for people that have a 20gb (ps3) cause i love my psp and i want to use remote play (dont get me wrong) it works sometimes but lags alot some how it picks it up but not to well…. well just hopeing keep up the great work!!! :)

  • Does this mean we may actually get the GPS attachment? I know its out there i tried it out at GDC this year.

    • Unfortunately, Talkman Travel does not support the GPS function, though it would have been nice to have.

      I wish I had news for you regarding the availability of the GPS peripheral, but I know nothing of it.. Sorry..

  • Give me tickets to Tokyo and tickets to TGS and I’ll gladly pay for the downloads. :-)

    On a somewhat related note, when will the GPS unit and maps for NA be released?

  • @Tsubasa Inaba
    Yes, I must admit some of those lines are cheesy, but at the end of the day, if this can spark up a conversation, what have you got to loose, right!?

    What’s a little dignity here and there if it works, lol.

    @Jeff Rubenstein

    I’ve never had a problem, and I absolutely will be bringing this to Japan for Tokyo Game Show.

    Jeff, I think it would be totally awesome if you filmed your self using the Talkman travel to communicate with the locals in Japan!

  • Finally some love to the psp, but only three is kindaaa…

  • wow im impressed, never saw this coming, keep it up!

  • What difference does this make to the Passport to… series?

    • I believe the experience that Talkman Travel will bring to the tourist will be more \”in person\” and will hopefully enhance communication amongst them and the locals.

  • This make me want to get a PSP even more now then ever, I would love to go to Japan but the language barrier keep me back big time this is a sweet new feature that will go over big for the PSP. Not only a gaming and media hub but now a Tourist Guide book and mini GPS almost, that is beyond sweetness.

    -James

    • The language barrier upon traveling to Tokyo, Japan is not as high as one would think.

      The people there may not be super fluent in English, but they will most certainly try to help you.

      I\’m sure Talkman Travel will take you a few steps forward as well!

  • Pick up lines, eh?…
    Bonjour, peux-je vous demander au dîner?

    Lol! this is going to be great! cant wait to see it!

  • about time we get one of the travel/language UMD’s for the PSP

  • will there be a bundle to it like all 3 city for 15.and can we get a video to show us how it works.

  • Pick up lines for the win.

    I know it tells you how to say stuff, but how do I understand the response I’ll get?

  • A really nice extra feature.

    Thanks for the post.

  • HEY!

    Wow. I am so jacked! I just wish you released this a year ago hehe–my bro and I went to Japan (tokyo actually) in June 07—we visited the PlayStation Square and I remember looking at Talkman thinking ‘Now why can’t they bring that stateside?’

    I was uber psyched that the DS had ‘My Japanese Coach’ coming out—-and now you guys do this—-SWEEET! PSP has a lot of games AND cool programs

    Inaba san or Sony: Please oh PLEASE continue this program–if you have to, team up with Rosetta Stone or something, a lot of us loyal PS fans are Japan fanatics and it would be AWESOME to have more tools like this to enable us to learn Japanese (not to mention European languages so we can chat with our old country PS allies mwahahaha–WORLD DOMINATION FTW!)

  • Wow! the PSP is really evolving!

  • I was just in Rome a couple months ago, a big shame this wasn’t out then.

  • Hm. Interesting at the very least. Fortunately, I ALWAYS take my language classes seriously. Parlez-vous francais? Se habla espanol aqui. Oh, and I can speak a little English. :P

  • I guess this is pretty neat.

  • When every major cities and languages will be available with Talkman Travel it will be a very popular and indispensible tool! I Hope the PSP will go far with that!

    This will be usefull for everyone!! Tokyo here I come!

    I hope that Sony will bring other appplications like that for the PSP. I was waiting for this kind of stuff.

    Other kind of stuff include:
    -A Translator.
    -A measures, weights, distances,volumes, speed and temperatures Converter.
    -Something to be able to write Notes.
    -A calendar where you can add appointments and tasks.
    -Timer and Stopwatch.

    Now you should understand what I mean. (^_^)

    I’m really happy to see that the PSP will now have his first application! People at Sony must understand that we dont have a wi-fi internet connection everywhere that we go!
    So offline applications are the way to go! (untill we have WiMAX everywhere.)

    • In other words, the \”Widget\” feature on a Mac, right?

      Thanks for the thoughts and opinions.
      They are always welcome.
      Just hope we could accommodate all of them!

  • Sweet! As soon as I sell my soul to my prefered airline for a ticket and fly my ass over to any of those 3 cities this will be usefull. This is great for somebody who’s going there, but for the majority this will never be used.

    Sorry to be a downer but I’d like to see more AAA games for the PSP instead of things like this.

    • Well… We are most certainly adding to our portfolio of games available on the PSP.

      There are games like this, and there are games that are multi million dollar productions.

      We\’re just trying to get neat things out to you, as we are aware of the diversity of consumer needs.

  • Sweet Looks more intresting then it Sounds :D

    It would make me want to go out of the USA alot safer since im all English :P

    Thanks for the Options agian SONY your the BOMB! ;)

    Thanks agian Ricky,

  • Egyptian_American

    Thanks.

  • Is it safe to say that this is a combination of both PSP ‘travel’ software ‘Talkman’ and Lonely-Planet-corroborated ‘Passport to…’ series that Europe has?

    just, Only without the UMD, and in Talkman’s case, without the microphone?
    and cheaper as ‘Passport to Talkman: Lite’?

    i have to say: Finally! I was wondering if those software would make if to America. while not in the same form of it’s predecessors, Still cool to finally get ‘Travel’ software on the PSP!

    (so, will we see Max any time soon? =D )

  • Great! Making Talkman downloadable was a fantastic idea. And separating the languages is also practical. The price is fine with me. I’ll be D/L-ing Japanese.

    Hey, Inaba-san, you family with Atsushi Inaba? Just wondering. Great job on Talkman!

    • Thanks for the positive thoughts.
      I hope this will make your travels to Tokyo more interesting.

      Atsushi Inaba…
      I do have a LOT of cousins (big family tree), and there is one, in fact, by the name of Atsushi. Not sure if we are talking of the same one here…

  • O K that’s pretty cool, I guess , so is gonna be a game ? or a travel guide ? or what’s up when I’m in Rome , I can just slip it out from under my toga and wow the women, oh no I wow them with something else from under the toga!!!

  • A GPS would be better and more useful, but I guess this is cool too….you might wanna make sure people can access the PSN store from their PSP though, makes for those compulsive purchases.

    • \”you might wanna make sure people can access the PSN store from their PSP\”

      Yes… I wish for this myself, frankly…

  • i want to learn japanese can we get something that teaches us how to read write and speak it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • tell me will this teach me how to read write and speak Japanese if not will there be a future software that does?i do like the Japanese culture alot and would love to be able to read write and speak it1!!!

    • Talkman Travel does not literally teach you the grammar or language, but by playing with the phrases (English phrases are translated into the Japanese, and shown on screen + pronunciation via audio is available too!) you may be able to pick up some of the wording and characters that are used.

      It certainly is a starting point!

  • will there be a bundle to it like all 3 city for 15?and can we get a video to show us how it works?

  • This is a great little application would also work for those of us who don’t travel to be able to converse with others visiting our Great country. Plus if there are more cities then more languages could be learned by myself and others!

  • Just the other day I was wondering about this. A while ago I had answered a questionaire regarding the proposal of this product. I am glad that it is finally coming available.

    I am glad that there will be a map feature.

    As a matter of fact, when I was on deployment last year (in Japan), I downloaded a couple of maps of the area we were spending our liberty on my PSP. I also downloaded a couple of pages of phrases. These became very handy tools.

    The Talkman Travel will certainly become a handy travel tool for many people when globetrotting. I hope that many will find an interest in this type of programming so that more will become available.

    Thank you, Tsubasa Inaba!

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