Gamedaily is reporting that Anthony Gikas, an analyst at research firm Piper Jaffray, thinks Sony could be launching a new PSP product sometime in mid-2006 that will feature an integrated hard drive. Gamedaily speculates that this could be a move by Sony to counter a new Nintendo Gameboy product that might launch sometime next year as well. Based on my experience with the Sony PSP, transferring files over to the Sony memory stick can be a chore that most people could do without. The instructions for playing back media content are unclear and overly complicated. An internal hard drive might help solve some of these issues. Of course Creative Labs has just launched their new Zen Vision product which is a portable media player featuring an integrated 30GB hard drive. The Zen Vision really is not much larger than the Sony PSP, so it would make sense for Sony to target Creative, and possibly Apple with a new PSP. There is no denying that the screen on the Sony PSP is nothing short of a work of art, with an integrated hard drive, Sony would have a killer product. In the same GameDaily article, Gigkas predicts that Microsoft’s early launch of the Xbox 360 will help the company grab more market share from Sony, who is expected to launch their Playstation 3 sometime in March 2006. In somewhat related news, Toshiba has announced that they will be pushing back the introduction of HD DVD players till later into 2006. With rumors surrounding the Xbox 360’s integration of an HD DVD drive, I think you can personally throw that idea out the window.
