I wonder what they could be up to? Oh well, better late than never.

Looking to capitilize on the success of the DS's touch screen capabilities, Sony has applied for, and was granted, a patent for a new handheld device with a touch screen. Could this be for their Playstation Phone? Perhaps, we will only be guessing until a potential press conference at E3. So who knows?

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) was granted a patent on Friday for a "hand-held [sic] device with touchscreen and digital tactile pixels." It'd be a stretch to say any of this is explicitly indicative of a PSP 2.0 or PSP phone, but it is interesting to note that "game device" is listed as one of the potential applications, alongside a plethora of other sony handhelds: phone, portable media player, email device, web browser device or navigation device.

As for defining "digital tactile pixels," claims 19 through 30 of the patent suggest that vibration acts as the "tactile" response. As our friends at PSP Fanboy point out, it could be a long time before we see anything to do with this patent (assuming we ever do).

Deathsythe via joystiq.com »