Rumors are circulating that Sony is planning to develop a combo gaming and cell phone device. Japanese Business daily Nikkei reported that Sony is putting together skunkworks team to develop this gadget that will marry the PlayStation Portable gaming consoles with the Sony-Ericsson mobile phone handsets.

O RLY? Can Sony take on the iPhone? Neither their Walkman or Sony Ericsson phones do that well at all in the US market. Personally, I’d like to see more Ericsson phones in the US market, I’ve had an Ericsson phone and I was really happy with it. But the general attitude towards Ericssons are “meh” at best. What could help this phone is if it gets the same all access to the PlayStation gaming network like their other handheld gaming systems. They also have to go up against the big wall of iTunes.

However, this isn’t the first time that Sony’s had designs on this kind of hybrid device. From Businessweek:

“Rumors that Sony was working on a PlayStation cell phone first cropped up two years ago when Sony’s engineers filed a patent describing such a gizmo. The Internet rumor mill went into overdrive again in April, after Kazuo Hirai, who had led Sony’s video game division, was named as the head of a broader portfolio of networked products and services. The PlayStation Network is Sony’s biggest success story in online services. Under Hirai, the PlayStation group has rolled out online downloads of music, movies, TV shows, games and created a content platform for developers to create applications and games, sell videos, and post trailers and sneak previews. It’s clearly the model that Sony wants other divisions to emulate.”

With some phones such as the LG Versa trying to capture the gamers with it’s gamepad module, we see that companies are hoping to catch gamers’ attention.

[via businessweek]

Sony Ericsson adds Yari and Aino to its multimedia line

I’m generally not a fan of Sony Products, but the Ericsson stuff is so sexxy. Check on these two mulitmedia devices that are coming out …somewhere else other than the States – from Engadget mobile:

he Yari slider (pictured left) is being billed as a gaming device, featuring gesture-controlled actions in the same vein as the Wii (and for the record, that’s Sony Ericsson’s comparison as much as it is ours). It features a 2.4-inch display, GPS, and support for the company’s PlayNow services; it’ll be available in the fourth quarter for about €400 ($558) unlocked. Next up, the Aino takes some cues from the Satio with a relatively large 3-inch touchscreen — but also tosses in a numeric slider for good measure. It’s got an 8.1 megapixel cam, Sony Remote Play support, GPS, HSPA, and a scratch-resistant mineral glass display; it’ll be ready to rock in the same timeframe as the Yari in black and white, though we don’t have pricing stats just yet — needless to say, it’ll be more than the Yari.