In the modern world smartphones are now rapidly gaining ground with regard to handheld game consoles:

This is a posting from me in 2001 regarding my long term perspective on the capabilities of future cellphones at the time:

"Such phones/PDAs will offer functions like:

- email (touchscreen with handwriting recognition, some will use bluetooth and enables you to use your stylus to write on any surface and wirelessly transmits the data to your phone.)
- webbrowser (not just text, it will support high quality graphics and sound as well, Flash)
- MP3/MPEG multimedia players (something like an inbuilt iPOD and fullscreen videos)
- Global positioning Services (Maps with your location, and find nearest restaurant/hotel/hospital/etc functions)
- Games(Both 3D and 2D but adjusted for small screensizes, online gaming i.e. play chess nomatter where your opponent is located i.e. in a train in Tokyo Japan or in the hospital somewhere in Amsterdam)
- Built-in webcam and 384kbs (currently available in Tokyo) allows you to instantly see to who you are talking with.
- Other stadard functions will also be available of course: Schedule, Calculator, Alarm, Call Answering, Voice Memo in Standby or Text Memo.

So PDAs/cellphones will surely be more than just an oversized calculator."

I think the iPhone 4 is awesome, it also sports the kind of crystal clear screen like I talked about in 2001 as becoming possible (IMO a very important factor for gaming). As Apple (and smartphones in general) is now eating significantly into the handheld gaming market, do you think it would be a good idea to equip a PSP2 with full cellphone capabilities? Personally I would love Sony to take this approach and rival Apple's awesome iPhone 4.

I was an OSNews writer/editor in the past, I followed the progress of smartphones closely. Here's a part from 2005 covering Cebit:

"Some highlights at the fair included some novel new consumer electronics being displayed, ranging from the very small to the ultra big! Such as for example Samsung's small 7 Megapixel Camera phone or their huge 102 inch Plasma TV! Further there was a clear converging trend to be seen with regard to hand-held devices as was already initiated more than half a decade ago in mainly Japan. Snapshot-camera, music player, GPS navigation and many other functionalities are finding their ways into the new generations of smart phones. And like was expected a few years ago the functionality border between 'phone enabled PDAs' and 'phones offering PDA functionality' is fading rapidly. The Japanese giant NTT DoCoMo was showcasing their 3G mobile phone services which are already widely in use in Japan, including videophone functionality, allowing live streaming video communications, or their FeliCa 'Mobile Wallet' service which allows instant payments and identifications."

Cool read, looks like you had most of that right down to details.

PS: Where have you been lately? Haven't seen you in a while.

When mikeB showed me this pie chart in 2001, I thought he was crazy.  Now, I know better.

I don't understand.. you guys spent 10 years on vgchartz? ...wat

He showed it to me in my fat period. Needless to say, I ate it.

@ Mummelmann

> PS: Where have you been lately? Haven't seen you in a while.

I have been very busy at work lately, actually the past couple of years I have been doing too much overtime like building a company from the ground up in my main job area (health care), where I had to attract doctors, therapists, receptionists, etc for a new resourceful company next to being a health care professional for the company myself. So I had little time for tech reports and being an advisor for tech companies.

The last couple of months have been very busy for me working at a remote location performing crisis management for a health care company. A couple of months ago there were only 2 therapists at this location (one parttimer and me doing some serious overtime). But my work is nearly done here as now we have 4 therapists, a trainer and remote receptionists. My next challenge I will start in 2011 when returning from vacation (Austria) at a location where 3 therapists are leaving due to problems with another nextdoor company and in the beginning I will need to cover for all of them...

@ Mummelmann

Actually I need to go work as of right now and will be back home 12 hours from now, just like for every other working day...

one point I would like to make is that the PSP 2 matching the iPhone 4 and being a phone would be a death nail for it as apple release a new phone every year and by the time the psp2 launches the iPhone 4 will already be last gen...

That's why if this were to happen,the playstation division would only take part in the process.The ones who will do the most work would be Sony Ericsson.
Anyway I don't think a PSP with smartphone capabilities would be called PSP2 in the first place.