Gaming website VG247 have declared that the ‘official’ release date for the next incarnation of the PlayStation handheld device, the PSP 2, will be “in time for Christmas 2011”.

Sony themselves have said nothing about a firm release date of a PSP 2 but, it they intend continuing with their PlayStation Portable gaming range then the PSP 2 will come at some point and a pre-holiday release would seem to make sense.

Apparently developers and publishers have been informed about the release date and the VG247 source told them that, “We’ve been told it’s coming in late 2011”. We will wait for the official word before getting too excited however.

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Sony Computer Entertainment America’s senior marketing vice president has put an end to rumors of any possible release of the PlayStation mobile phone in 2010.

Speaking to the Seattle Times, Peter Dille simply stated that they are no plans to launch any mobile this year:

Does this talk about the PlayStation brand signal more products coming soon — maybe a new mobile device?

“No new mobile launches this year.”

The PlayStation Android OS based mobile phone was rumored to be due for an October release. Perhaps we will hear more from Sony before the end of the year about hopefully a 2011 release.

September 9th is the 15th anniversary of the North American Playstation console launch and we wish the original PlayStation a very happy birthday!

Since the PlayStation was launched the brand has grown and grown and has sold almost 377 million consoles (which includes the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3) and 2 billion software units since 1995.

To celebrate the event Sony are offering freebies on the PlayStation Network (PSN) and have launched a category on the PlayStation store specifically for ‘anniversary goodies’ including retro games and themes.

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Head of Polyphony Digital (a subsidary of Sony Computer Entertainment and creators of the Gran Turismo series of games), Kaz Yamauci has made a post on Twitter apparently stating that he believes that the upcoming PS3 title Gran Turismo 5 could require a massive 10GB of hard drive space to install the game for smoother game play.

Gran Turismo 5 will be released at the beginning of November this year for the Sony PlayStation 3 and can actually run using just 256MB of hard drive space. CVG thinks that the ‘recommendation’ by Yamauchi to fully install the game is to “take the heat off the Blu-ray disc” which makes sense.

Of course, 10 GB is a lot of space but, considering the length of time we have waited for GT5 and the anticipation that has built up for it’s release, I doubt many gamers would really mind if they absolutely had to use up 10GB on their hard drives, GT5 is presumably going to be one of the ‘must have’ titles of 2010 after all.

Gran Turismo 5 will be released on November 2nd in America and on November 3rd in Europe and Japan.

Could it be Sackboy or are we about to see some Mafia II content released soon? Well, we will find out for sure in around about 3 days and 12 hours it seems.

Over on the Japanese PlayStation site, Sony have created a countdown page for an unnamed ‘product’. All we see is a man sitting in a chair knitting. The man in question appears to be in ‘mafia clothing’ and is knitting what could be a sackboy although, we really don’t know anything for sure. The name of the page that Sony have put up is Amimono which apparently means ‘knitting’ in Japanese.

If you want to keep track of the countdown yourself, the Amimono page is the place to go and if anyone has any suggestions as to what the mystery content could be, let us know in the comments!