With all the talk about the 3DS lately, lets talk about some of the rumbling in the distance about this other bad boy that's been hiding in the shadows.
There have been a lot of quiet leaks over the past couple of months (most in the past week or two) about the PSP2, here's what seems to be consistently rumored so far:
It has roughly similar capabilities to the PS3 and 360.Don't assume that just because it's a handheld that it can't pull this off. The PS3 and 360 are now 5 year old technology. Similarly, the PSP had roughly the capabilities of a PS2 (on a smaller screen) 5 years ago. This is quite possible and honestly rather expected.
It has two analog sticks.The biggest mistake the PSP ever made (which nintendo felt the need to copy and repeat, for some reason) is finally being corrected. There are leaked pictures of the devkit and it most definately has two analog sticks.
It has a touchscreen/track pad on the back of the unit.You read that right. Sony have supposedly come up with a clever idea to add touch controls to games without getting your fingers in the way of the screen, by putting the "touch screen" on the back of the unit. This might take some getting used to, and obviously wont be used over the two analog sticks for controls but sounds like a great idea to not get grubby finger prints on your screen.
Was originally a slide-out style, but now looks like the PSP.The form factor supposedly was originally a slide-out, similar to the PSPGo. However they had problems disipating the heat from it (!) so instead it's rumored to now look similar to the current PSP.
The screen is possibly an OLED.A recent source claims that the PSP2 has an OLED screen. These things are extra thin, extra fast, and don't need a backlight (so they're like a Plasma TV) and don't need as much power to run. On the flip side, these things are really expensive. If the device really has one it'll probably add $100 to the price alone.
There's no UMD.This is unfortunate (won't be able to play your old games on it) but it was expected. Word is that the new device will use something like SD-cards for both it's games and it's storage (and also very likely to include some internal flash storage ala 8GB/16GB iPhones.)
It has built-in 3G for always-on multiplayer, internet, and store access.This is the very latest rumor surrounding the PSP2. Supposedly a particular Japanese telecoms company has been pinpointed as the carrier for the service in Japan. We don't really know any extra details such as what this costs or if it'll even be available in the US (since they have greedy cellphone companies to deal with). Hopefully they release two SKUs, one with 3G and a wifi only version, similar to the iPad, iPhone/iPodTouch, Amazon Kindle, etc.
It's getting announced this week. On Thursday 27th.Sony are holding a press event this week, it's been pinpointed by a lot of sources as the date they're going to annoucne the PSP2. It's very likely that this will be the case, because the 3DS launch looms around the corner, and Sony will want to make sure everyone knows that "something better" is coming out soon, before everyone spends all their money on the 3DS.
Yes, this thing is likely to be very expensive. People have shown in the past couple of years that they're willing to pay a premium for the very latest handheld/portable technology if it has nerd-gasm specs (see: iPad, iPhone, etc). Hopefully on Thursday we'll find out all about it.
If it has all of the above stuff, I wouldn't expect change out of $300-$350.
EDIT: Here's two of the leaked devkit pics from a few months ago:
Remember the word on the street is that the PSP2 is no longer a slide-out unit like the PSPGo (which I think is a real shame).
And here's an "artists rendition" of what it might look like given everything we know so far: (Spoiler: It looks like a PSP.)
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