PSP phone rumours fuelled by new pictures
UPDATE: PSPgo look-a-like features multi-touch panel, shoulder buttons, SD card support
More pictures of an alleged PSP phone have emerged, fuelling further discussion as to if or when Sony will release a PlayStation branded mobile to market.
The latest shots, ostensibly of an early prototype, appear on tech blog Engadet - the same site which obtained an iPhone 4 and dissected it well before the machine was made public.
The pictures come from an undisclosed source and show a device cosmetically similar to the PSPgo, albeit with a missing analogue nub and an added touch pad between buttons and D-pad. The prominent PSP shoulder buttons are present and an SD card slot appears on the back.
Engadget is reporting rumours of the phones technical specifications, too. A 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM, and a 3.7"-4.1" screen. The phone reportedly operates on the new Android 3.0 platform, known as Gingerbread.
It's not a new rumour - ever since 2003 when Ken Kutaragi speculated that a mobile phone peripheral would be released for the original PSP, stories regularly emerge that the hardware manufacturer has decided to step into the mobile communications market.
In 2007, SonyEricsson - which already has a successful foothold in the mobile phone market - suggested that it was considering a PSP crossover for a high-spec handset, after a Sony Bravia mobile specialising in TV playback became popular in Japan.
The rumours join the flurry of speculation over the PSP's successor, which has been posited as possessing a quad-core graphics chip and a touch screen on its reverse. Dev kits for the PSP 2 are already in the hands of developers.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Sony has told NowGamer the images are "definitely fake."