It would seem that despite the impending fall launch of the PSPgo, PSP2 rumours just won’t go away. Engadget picked up a story last week about the PSP2 that had its genesis last year involving leads from Eurogamer. Also following this rumour, gamesindustry.biz updated their story they first reported on last year regarding the likely chipset of the rumoured in-development PSP2.
In the gamesindustry article Imagination Technologies is rumoured to;
be working with Sony on the PSP2 [...] when the company announced it had stuck a deal with a ‘major consumer electronics company.’ The site claims to have information from insider sources stating that a quad core iteration of the low-power SGX543MP chip, codenamed Hydra, will be present in the next generation handheld, not to be confused with the forthcoming PSPgo.
I can’t help but wonder how much longer Sony feels that they can cling to the PSP. Even the PSPgo that is due out soon is essentially a marginal upgrade sans UMD but with digital distribution. Since its 2005 release, Sony’s handheld has struggled with comparisons to the Nintendo DS. Where the DS has successfully dominated the handheld market as a whole with a variety of clever games designed to utilize the stylus, the PSP’s early ports of home console games failed to resonate early on.
In sad irony; Sony has recently been building a decent software library for its handheld. Even with a large marketing engine behind PSPgo and with games like God of War:Chains of Olympus, Patapon 2, not to mention the pending arrival of Gran Turismo-PSP it looks like Sony will continue to struggle with staying on message. The Engadget and Games Industry articles tell us that despite Sony’s focus on PSP the market is ready for a true upgrade to the platform with *ahem* a second analog nub thank you very much.
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