Sony said Monday that its version 4 PSP firmware will allow users to access Google's search engine directly from the XMB interface.

Once the PlayStation Portable user installs Sony's new Version 4 firmware, a new "Internet Search" option will appear in the Xross Media Bar. Clicking on it will pop up a search box where the user can enter queries. The software also saves the user's past 20 searches through the device.

"This new upgrade replicates the Google Internet search experience, delivering the same search results that you'd get at google.com," PlayStation Network chief Eric Lempel said.

Google, though, has been accessible through the PSP's Web browser for almost three years, so this latest announcement is hardly as groundbreaking as the promised Skype functionality which Sony said would be added to the PSP back in January, and which still hasn't arrived. Sony first introduced a Web browser into the PSP's version 2.0 software when it was released in August 2005.

Though the PSP wasn't the first handheld gaming console to incorporate Internet browsing (Tiger's failed Game.com system in 1997 connected to its own 14.4 Kbps modem), in August 2005, it became the first popular portable game device with full, graphical Web connectivity built-in, by virtue of Sony's release of version 2.0 of its firmware.

Other updates forthcoming with firmware version 4 include the capability to change the viewing speed of video clips stored on Memory Sticks: users can either speed up or slow down during playback, Lempel said. No date has been set as to when the company expects to release the update to users; the most recent firmware update, version 3.95, was released last April.