Sega to launch PSP beater in 2009
Upcoming handheld games, music, video player spied in the wild
Exclusive Sega will next year launch a portable media player boasting enough functionality to threaten Sony’s PlayStation Portable, the Register Hardware can exclusively reveal.
Sega Vision: up to eight entertainment features
The PMP is to be called the Sega Vision and it’ll work as a videogames machine, in addition to playing films. The unit will feature an integrated camera for capturing still images and video. A built-in TV tuner will provide yet another form of entertainment.
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Sega Vision may also threaten Sony’s Reader range of e-book viewers, because books are listed as one of Vision’s features. The Sega PMP will also handle music and work as a voice recorder.
Sega Visions (left) sit next to iPod Nanos (right) in a London arcade's grabber machine
Sadly, none of the machine’s technical specifications have been revealed yet, such as which music formats it’ll support, whether there’ll be on-board storage or how many megapixels the camera will have.
Sega told us that Vision will be launched in the UK at some point early next year, but a price hasn’t been set yet.
However, if you like what you've heard, then a handful of working models – believed to be the only ones in existence in the UK – are currently sitting in a central London arcade waiting to be won.
COMMENTS
FAKE---POOR JOURNALISM
This is an aftermarket knock off
The "Sega Vision" trademark that is shown in the picture died in 1985!
SEGA VISION----(CANCELLED) IC 009. US 021. G & S: TELEVISION PROJECTION UNIT INCLUDING A VIDEO PROJECTOR AND VIDEO SCREEN. FIRST USE: 19761019. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19761019
Filed in 1977.
Some back alley Hong Kong knockoff artist can use that "trademark" and slide through legal loopholes.
fifty thumbs down for posting this rubbish as news.
FAKE
Come on guys, you must realise this is just a fake? Is just some dodgy media player using the Sega logo.
For god sake it's in an arcade machine that you can win it from, does that sound real to you???
LOL, Sony haters are getting desperate...
I mean come on James, since when has Java Mini games been anything like PSP games? My £30 phone does Java Mini Games, and I rarely use it for that purpose. Also the PSP already does pretty much everything on that list, including eBook reading, if you know what you are doing. I think the onlt think missing is the TV tuner, but when you already have the PlayTV Slingbox style usage, it's not really that important to view LiveTV, when you can view LiveTV, including Satellite and pre-recorded TV on a PSP already.
This is just Sega and James trying to convince the world they are still relevant... James, go back to UKResistance...
Last Sega portable the Nomad?
Wasn't the last Sega portable actually the Nomad? I have one of these, and I quite like it. It plays the full-sized Sega Genesis carts with a built-in LCD screen and 6-button controller, with a port for a second controller. It also has a video output port capable of S-VHS output (IIRC, it has RGB on the port, too) and an RF adapter accessory.
You really need to use the NiMH battery pack, as the thing just sucks AA's in no time.
No TV tuner like the Game Gear, though.
Anyway, this looks like a paltry entry from a once-great console maker, and like some other people here, I want to cry "fake." I cannot imagine that the formerly great Sega would produce such a gadget which runs "the Java mini game" without a slew of titles to go with it, and great fan-fare.
No. Indeed, I call Shenanigans on this. Although I would love to see Sega introduce a PSP-killer... it would really piss off the console makers for which it develops software. Probably not a prudent move without a HUGE secret undertaking.
Paris, she has a second port so a friend can join in, too.
