The existence of a PlayStation Phone seems to be the worst kept secret in tech, these days. It’s as though Sony execs just can’t wait to tell the rest of the world what they’ve been working on in secret. But now, one of the Sony officials told that the company may launch a Playstation Phone.
Last week Sony refused to comment. However, Masaru Kato, Sony’s chief financial officer, hinted it may launch a PlayStation phone product on an earnings call over the weekend. He said, through an interpreter: “As for the new PSP product, as mentioned, I know that you are not asking me to tell you when we will be coming out with a new product, but there is a gaming market based on [the] cellphones, and there are many changes that are being seen [with] Nintendo, as well as ourselves, in the field of the product for the gamers. And there are smartphones and others or even cellphones gaming markets are very popular here in Japan. So the market itself is very… expanding.”
Engadget reported that Playstation Phone will be running on Google Android upcoming version Gingerbread. The phone will have 1GHz Snapdragon processor and over 3.7-inch screen. The phone also provides dual cameras, one at front for video call. The rear camera may support HD recording with Xneon Flash. Sony may use Micro SD slot for the memory expansion.
Speculation has been rife for some time that Sony would license its PlayStation brand to the Sony Ericsson mobile arm of its business. In July last year, Nikkei, a respected daily business newspaper in Japan, reported that Sony was considering such a product. Sony is said to be concerned by the threat posed by Apple’s iPhone. Dozens of major games studios, including Capcom and Electronic Arts, are developing games for Apple’s touch-screen device, potentially pitting the iPhone and iPod touch directly against Sony’s PSP console and Nintendo’s hand-held device, the DS. However, gaming fans will not be getting their hopes up – rumours of a PSP phone first surfaced in 2007, when Sony filed a patent application showing a portable games device with phone capabilities, while in January 2009, Sony was said to have refused to sanction the use of the PlayStation brand by its Sony Ericsson telecoms arm.
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