Yes, I know, you probably didn’t even think about a walkman in a long time; and most likely it’s been a real while since you’ve seen one, but Sony’s is -NOT- celebrating the release of their first Walkman 30 years ago.
Sony is still trying to make a revolutionary product release that they didn’t have particulary since the first portable audio player hit the market. They are having a rough year (first annual loss balance in 14 years) and they don’t have so great expectations for next year either. Most of the hopes are placed in PlayStation 3 (mainly based on two things, the release of the slim version and waiting for the blu-ray to become a real home standard), and also the portable new console PSP Go!
Getting back to the walkman’s story, here’s a quick and funny image that a friend of mine sent me today:
Dean this morning wrote a very interesting article about Sony turning their PSP into a phone. However, we have now found some very interesting information that I just had to show all our readers. Its the drawing of the product itself.
The PSP is by no means the most successful handheld gaming device. It trailed behind the DS for all of its life and now even the iPhone has it beaten when it comes to the selection of games, even though the PSP had a three year jump on the iPhone.
However, recently stories have emerged that seem to indicate the next PSP will have smart phone capabilities. Reuters revealed that Ericsson and Sony Entertainment have been drawing up plans to create the phone even before their latest invention; the PSP Go, has been released.
The current PSP already has some communication capability with Wi-Fi allowing internet browsing and Skype chat. However, if this plan was to proceed we would likely see 3G, a touch screen and a host of other smart phone features thrown into a PSP. The main problem with this would of course be battery life, but with an electronics company such as Sony I’m sure they could come up with something.
Sony are reported to be putting together a team to begin creating this PSP smart phone as early as July and are engaged in talks with British telecom to bring voice and video chat to the PSP. However, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet. Plans like these have a tendency of falling through due to overcrowding in the market or just a really bad finished product.
In this autumn Sony will be releasing the new PSP version: PSP Go! And again, the gamer community has a lot of expectation with this new toy that will include several improvements from the earlier version.
Some of them:
~ 43% lighter. The previous version didn’t feel like too heavy, but if this one is lighter, even better.
Versions with 8/16 gb internal memory.
3.8-inch screen. It is not a touch-screen if you want to ask. Maybe we can expect that feature on next version.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support.
Games announced so far: Little Big Planet, Jak & Daxter, Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid.
Price: So far, Unknown. But it should be around $250 or $300, don’t you think?
Most of this information it is not “official” and we are expecting the response from Sony any moment now. Considering that not only all this data has been revealed (leaked or not), there was also photos of this new model (Eurogamer photo gallery).
And this interview from Sony Qore with John Koller:
They sure will be insisting on having this PSP as the portable PS3. And I love that!
Yes, I know, you probably didn’t even think about a walkman in a long time; and most likely it’s been a real while since you’ve seen one, but Sony’s is -NOT- celebrating the release of their first Walkman 30 years ago.
The PSP is by no means the most successful handheld gaming device. It trailed behind the DS for all of its life and now even the iPhone has it beaten when it comes to the selection of games, even though the PSP had a three year jump on the iPhone.
In this autumn Sony will be releasing the new PSP version: PSP Go! And again, the gamer community has a lot of expectation with this new toy that will include several improvements from the earlier version.
