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Sony will unveil a next-generation PlayStation Portable on January 27th, according to a Bloomberg report that also said the much-rumoured ‘Playstation Phone’ would also arrive the following month.
Citing unnamed sources with ‘knowledge of the plans’, Bloomberg said that the Playstation Portable would be unveiled as part of a strategy to leverage the so-called ‘networked entertainment services’ category and would be able to share games, movies and music among handheld devices as well as other Sony products such as televisions and, presumably, the PlayStation 3 console.
Sony has refused to confirm what will be announced at the scheduled briefing next Thursday. The company made no mention of a game-playing mobile phone at the recent CES show in Las Vegas although it did unveil a curved Sony Ericcson Xperia Arc Android-powered handset.
Kaz Hirai, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment, had cryptically suggested that the firm would ‘leverage the PlayStation brand’ in the smartphone segment. The Sony-Ericcson Xperia Arc already shows some signs of Sony’s strategy of cross-promoting its brands by calling the display hardware a "Bravia Engine" and introducing an unusually high specification camera badged as the firm’s Exmor R technology.
