Talk of a PlayStation Phone is still going strong and Sony isn’t doing much to kill the rumors. It started back in August and was reignited last week when Engadget showed up with photos. During two separate conference calls for investors last Friday, Sony was asked to comment on the alleged PlayStation Phone. One call was in Japanese and later translated. The second was directed at US investors. The results don’t necessarily prove the existence of a PlayStation Phone, but they aren’t denying anything, either.
The initial comment, translated from Japanese, is especially vague:
“It’s not that we are not looking into those markets as well. We will look into those markets in trying to develop strategy for the future. Of course, we can’t talk about specific products, but smartphones and tablets… it is difficult to tell you how we can put the games on them, but they are not going to be planned in different parts of our company,” the unidentified Sony executive said. “When we organized ourselves last April, we introduced network services, and within that umbrella, network services, all of these products are handled. Therefore, the planning and the prototypes for various content [are] all carried out within this… one umbrellas. So we are trying to figure out what we can do as Sony in this market. I think this is as far as I can tell you regarding these products at market.”
During the second call, Sony executive vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato,, and senior general manager of investor relations Gen Tsuchikawa, were present on the call. The actual speaker didn’t identify himself, but he was slightly less vague:
“Now, PSP being a proprietary platform, was more concentrated on, how do you say, [the] core gaming segment rather than the light gamer,” the executive added. “But now we are addressing that market as well. I cannot be specific as to how we will introduce new product to address these markets, but one thing I can say is that we have those markets addressed, and we will come out with products and services to capture the broader gaming market.
“I know this will not be a clear-cut answer, but please wait until we are ready to announce what ever products and services that we may come up with,” the Sony executive said.
Based on their remarks, Sony is definitely working on something to address the “light gaming market.” They specifically mention smartphones and tablets and we can assume this “light gamer” would be someone who just plays games on their smartphone during downtime. By that ingenious logic and combined with the leaked photos, it’s obvious Sony is working on a smartphone. It’s also possible they are looking into a tablet device with gaming abilities, much like the iPad.
What do you think they’re working on?
via PCMag.com