Analyst Predicts New Sony PSP in 2006

September 30, 2005 By Ian Bell

Piper Jaffray analyst Anthony Gikas thinks Sony could be releasing a new Sony PSP with a built-in hard drive, some time in 2006.

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.

Showing 7 comments

Just Wait at 8:59am 8th October 2005 hello all
they are selling right now 4 gig HDD with 2x battery for PSP i wont tell you the price but:and they have nouthing to do with sony(max sumthing)I realy wont be happy unless i get 20gig eney thing biger is a huge bonus am i right or wot

I WANT ALL BUM FIGHTS MP4s ON MY TEENY PSP NICE
Just Wait at 8:59am 8th October 2005 hello all
they are selling right now 4 gig HDD with 2x battery for PSP i wont tell you the price but:and they have nouthing to do with sony(max sumthing)I realy wont be happy unless i get 20gig eney thing biger is a huge bonus am i right or wot
M S2R at 5:15am 6th October 2005 I just hate all those announcements of new better batteries, new model with hdd, pricedrops and so on, when you have just bloody bought your own PSP. It allways gives me the feeling I'd better waited for the new model or pricedrop around X-mas or so! If the "new" 2006 model PSP realy has a better battery and say, a build in 4G flash memory, EVERYBODY is being deceived. How can you make your customers more enthousiastic with postponed release, and then when everybody buys it, announce after 6 months aalready the new and bleeding improved model!!
fungku at 10:21am 4th October 2005 I would imagine that their production technology has increased over time so that they can shrink certain components to allow for a hard drive.

They may just add a flash hard drive. It's cheap, small, doesnt take much battery power to operate and no moving parts so its not as easy to break. The price of a PSP is already cheaper than many PMP (Portable Media Players) our there, adding a drive and increasing the price by $50 isnt that big of a hit on people's wallets. The other thing is price of manufacturing could go down, so drop the price on the PSPs without a drive and sell the ones with a hard drive for the current price.
lon3wolf at 8:14am 4th October 2005 This report is redunculous. Adding in a hdd would only make hte psp flop like a dead fish. People are already complaining about the short bettery life. The more the system works (loading data off UMD) the shorter the battery lasts. If a hdd was added the continuous draw of power would put the battery under 1 hour.

Even if Sony did manage to put in a hdd, what size would they get? 4 gig or 6 gig? Not only would it raise the cost of the PSP, it would take up a lot more space. The PSP is already packed in with guts so unless they make a micro hdd that fits in some tiny space, theyll have to change the shape. Its just stupid considering the fact that a 1 gig duo is just around $100 and you can get them cheaper. Flash memory is dropping price quickly so a hdd would be just pointless.
lon3wolf at 8:14am 4th October 2005 This is beyong bogus. People are already complaining about the short battery life. With an aditional hard drive (which is forced to spin) sucks up battery life even more. The Palm life drive is a perfect example of this. Has 4 gigs of har drive memory but runs slow at 400 mhz. Since the PSP only runs at 333 mhz max it would run at a crawling speed unless sony upgraded the procesor which would raise the price.
In addition, duo memory cards are geting cheaper by the minute and 1 and 2 gigs are already available. Adding what, a 4 or 6 hdd would do nothing but decrease bettery life and increase in size and cost.
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 11:02am 3rd October 2005 I think it would be a killer idea to add a hard drive to the PSP. I have one now and playing media is a pain in the butt, and the memory cards are pretty expensive too.