Playstation Portable 2

After months of speculations, Sony has yet to release official statements that their PlayStation Portable is going to be upgraded this year. Even at the end of the 2006, more speculative news were released regarding the already much talked about upgrades of the portable game console.

The very first PlayStation Portable was released in 2004 in Japan and was unveiled on March 2005 in the United States and Canada followed by the Europe and Australia launch on September of the same year. The PSP offered more than just games. The game player was able to play videos and music, as well as allows the viewing of images. The PSP has also Internet browsing functionality.

The game unit also supports audio in AAC, MP3, and WMA formats. Also playable are MPEG-4 and AVC video formats. The PSP has very reasonable video and audio bit-rate settings which makes it ok to watch feature length films. A number of movie files have already been encoded for the PlayStation Portable and are readily available on the Internet for download. This makes the PSP more than just a gaming device.

Because the PSP has already been out in the market for almost two years, people are already expecting that Sony will be releasing a newer version soon. However, most feel that the upgrades are only minimal probably taking on the issues of storage capacities, RAM and graphics chips. At 170 mm (6.7 inches) in length, 74 mm (2.9 inches) in width, and 23 mm (0.9 inches) in depth, the PSP has already a total weight of 280 grams or 0.62 lbs, already light if you ask me. The TFT LCD screen is 110 mm (4.3 in) diagonal with a ratio of 16:9 and a pixel resolution of 480×272. The present LCD screen is capable of displaying 16.77 million colors. Definitely, the newer PSP will be slimmer than the old one. One can also look at the possibility of increasing the size of the LCD screen or at the very least an increased in pixel resolution.

Some news pegged the release of the PSP2 in 2007 with changes or upgrades being integrated by Sony gradually. Some say that the company will definitely upgrade first the built-in memory, changing it from the present 32MB to 8GB. This is based on the development of the memory chip industry. Some say the newer PSP will also have a built-in camera. Also speculated to be part of the upgraded PSP is the recreation of the UMD drive making it into a slot-loading drive.

Also, some industry analysts floated the idea that the newer PSP will be having a 60 GB internal memory. This assumption came wholly from the recent introduction of a new N-series line of 1.8 inch hard drives from Samsung. Samsung announced their new hard drives late December 2006 which jump started a whole new speculation line for the development and release of Sony's PSP2.

Regardless, these are all speculations at this point. As long as Sony remains mum on the situation, the industry will try to read all the signs the electronics giant is showing and guess on the next moves of the company that could again change the gaming world.