LEAKED: SONY PSP2

There are rumors that the Sony PlayStation Portable 2 is a very real product, but now the first images of a prototype device have been leaked to the internet.

Earlier reports pegged the PSP2 as having a touch panel on the back of the device, Xbox-360-caliber graphics, no UMD and twin thumbsticks (the single analog thumbstick on the first PSP has been a common source of criticism on a portable console that seems tailor-made for 3D games).

The new leaked images seem to support most of these rumors. The PSP2 appears to be a PSP Go style slider. It still features Sony’s patented cross, square, circle, triangle button confguration, but gains twin thumbsticks, a microphone and a front-facing camera. On the back is the rear trackpad as well as a higher resolution backwards facing camera.

It looks like a heck of a prototype, but the images come with one big caveat: you’ll probably never see this PSP2, since Sony has allegedly already decided on going with a different design that eschews the PSP Go’s slider approach to compactability.