Android's openness makes this more exciting. We will likely see emulators for all the classic systems before too long and have an actualy D-Pad to play them with. Technically illegal (the roms, not the emulator) but that won't stop me. I wish there was a legal rom store (not just VC, a buy a rom and run it on any emulator you want store).

This thing is full of PS3 reminiscence

The emulators are already on the Android marketplace and selling in the top ten. They just need a little patch to support this device's interface.

Indeed. I'm not interested in them in the current form since touch screen D-pad and buttons border on unuseable in all but the least precision demanding games.

...to ngage

Despite all drawbacks Nokia really had offered some unique value with N-Gage that time and software was about portable game experience unlike PSP bottom line which basically is "here comes downgraded PS2 with crappy PS ports right in to your hands"

i think this will be another experiment before next year release of PSP 2

guys its all about style these days. Why do you guys think iphone is such a huge success. It has multfunctionality and it looks very good and cool. Only one audience comes into mind that will actually buy the psphone and thats the Gaming audience. I dont think a businessman will buy a PSphone. Not even your average day teenager would buy this unless he/she is very much into gaming. So I really hope that the added dpad doesn't makes it thick or look ugly in anyway. Imagine yourself in school with this phone. But of course im judging from that fake picture and if it is anything close to that it will ultimately fail.

Hmm interesting, Sony may well be onto something big here...

it isn't about the gaming

if the phone becomes popular,people buy it even if they don't game just because its COOL

I think this is pretty exciting, regardless of whether this is the PSP-4000 or the PSP2, although it will depend on the final execution (if all this is even remotely true to begin with).

What I am hoping this means, is that Sony creates a phone that is specialized for gaming and will come with all the functionality you would expect from a handheld gaming device. What they're creating then, would be the premier hardware for gaming with Android, on smartphones in general perhaps. If it takes off, games on Android (the kind it has right now) would be built to play well with these controls, which means you have a hell of a lot of games to play from the Android Market alone.

On top of this, if Sony makes this the best solution for gaming on Android and succeeds in getting big games made for it (with publishers bringing games of the same "scale" as PSP games), these would be games that play on many Android devices but play best on the PSPhone (or similar gaming Android hardware if that should ever be made), which could equate to huge third party support do to the already massive install base.

I don't know how it would work in detail with licensing etc., but maybe the added install base would help offset the lack of revenue generated by licenses from third parties, as Sony could sell more of their own software to generate revenue.

But basically, this is something I really, really want to see happen, and what I imagined when we first discussed the PSP2 as an Android device. When all is said and done, I want devices that can all play the same games (death to non-sense exclusives!), and this would be a step in that direction (like Valve has done with Steam and PC/Mac games). It would also help bridge the gap between traditional quality handheld games and smaller mobile games, but with the functionality of the smartphone on top.

Do it Sony! :D