Sony PSP does wireless

Lasse Penttinen
29 Jul 2003 8:05

As the Nokia N-Gage, the portable gaming console with cell phone functionality, is about to be released before the end of this year, Sony has released more information about Playstation Portable.
Not surprisingly, the PSP will also have wireless functions for communicating with other devices and for multiplayer abilities. According to the source, the PSP will utilize WLAN or Bluetooth technology and infra link, which is rather obsolete technology when compared to the first two.

Ken Kutaragi told the meeting of developers and publishers that the device will be able to access the Internet wirelessly through local area networks - suggesting that the system will use either 802.11 wireless networking technology, or possibly Bluetooth.

The Nokia N-Gage utilizes Bluetooth as well as GSM and GPRS cell phone technology and is Interned enabled for email (IMAP, POP, etc.) and WAP. As Sony won’t be the first to market, they need are expected to match or outperform the N-Gage.

The most interesting part in the source article is that Sony PSP might not be just a game console with connectivity, but a multipurpose next generation hand held with also a lot of useful tool-like purposes.

"I want to make it the ultimate mobile device," Kutaragi told the meeting. "I need your support for that." What he seems to be aiming for, however, is a mobile technology equivalent of the Swiss Army knife - a flexible and powerful piece of equipment capable of fulfilling an extraordinarily wide range of roles depending on what software and hardware it's loaded out with.

Making the PSP as a PDA like multi purpose tool would be an interesting move by Sony, that would separate PSP a lot from the old Playstation product line, which are sole gaming and entertainment devices. On the other hand, all this talk about the potential features reveals how much work to do the electronics giant still has before the launch.
Even though the planned feature pack seems delicious, no cell phone functionality has been mentioned, even though Sony would have the resources to implement that too (Sony Ericsson). This would give the N-Gage an edge, since who is willing to carry two devices when you could have all-in-one? I have personally tested the N-Gage and it seems to be serving very well as a cell phone (N-Gage has Symbian Series 60 platform, just like Nokia’s current top of the line products) and the mobile phone giant has managed to pack everything into a pocket fit size.

TheRegister.co.uk