It is being reported that HTC may be the first company outside of Sony to be getting PlayStation certification. Pocket-lint are reporting that an official announcement is expected later this year, and could even come at the end of this month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

This will mean that owners of HTC smartphones and tablets PCs will eventually be able to enjoy classic titles such as Crash Bandicoot among others. Sony first announced the PlayStation certification program more than a year ago in Japan during the debut of the PS Vita.

The PlayStation suite along with the certification program is a cross platform initiative for Android devices, which is aimed at manufacturers and gamers alike while Sony looks to continue to strive in a competitive market.

For companies it gives them the opportunity to provide some great games, and gamers can revisit those great days of the original PlayStation. Surprisingly handset manufacturers have been slow to take the platform on board.

If the rumor is true it will be a massive boost for HTC as it looks to address its recent slide, and will also allow it to offer something that fierce rivals Apple and Samsung will not. HTC themselves wouldn’t comment on the speculation, but sources are claiming HTC will win the PlayStation certification during the second half of his year.

Would Sony PlayStation certification make you consider a HTC handset more?

According to the CTO of Sony’s Computer Entertainment division, Maasaki Tsuruta, the next console will have up to a ten year shelf-life while talking to E&T. The company has made the same claims about the PS3, and although is a lot longer than the market has historically seen, the PS3 could be at least seven years old before its replacement hits the market.

Tsuruta believes that the next PlayStation lifespan will depend on the costs of the consoles electronics system design. The inner workings of the PS3 that was developed with IBM and Toshiba is thought to have cost $400 million.

But its replacement will need to be much more advanced with regards to the main central processor and the graphics processor. Sony is not saying how big its budget is but some analysts believe it could be as high as $1 billion for the silicon alone. The current console is now being pushed to its limits by some of the software designed to run on it.

According to Tsuruta the company always looks at current solutions and technologies and how their lifespan can be extended. He added “You always want ‘perfect’ technologies, but there are none, so you look at what is available, and try to get as close as possible to that goal”. Some of these things that Sony may want could still be five years away according to Tsuruta.

The next PlayStation will not only have to offer a great performance straight out of the box, but will have to continue delighting users for a long while after with new options. This also means that Sony is looking to create a new console that can have new peripherals added anytime after launch.

Sony is looking to develop games that can respond to player’s emotions with controllers that have more accelerometers, and even vital sign sensors. There have even been suggestions of devices that can read gamers eye movements.

The company is not looking at 1080p resolution in the future and not even 4k, as Sony is planning to go to 8k. This is highly unlikely to come about in time for the PS4 but you never know as the company has again denied there will be any news on the console in the near future. Sony is also attempting to get the latency under 50ms for frame rates over 300fps.

CVG are reporting in an article via Andriasng that PS 2 software sales were a 1,527,000,000 as of December 2010, this is from 10,828 releases. Sony also expects that demand will continue for the console especially in areas such as South America, South East Asia, East Europe, and the Middle East.

Phil Harrison who was Sony’s head of Worldwide Studios, said recently that Sony will find it hard to match the PS2 sales with the PS3. This is down to the end of the golden age of third-part exclusives.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is still the platforms biggest seller; according to an article on IGN it sold 17.33 million copies. While the PlayStation 3 has some catching up to do with sales of 47.9 million as of December 31st 2010.

Can the PlayStation 3 sell as many units as the PS2?

The Japanese games console maker understands that the current smartphone market is now starting to eat into their portable gaming market – so maybe Nintendo should turn the tables and enter the smartphone market? We know one thing, they will be able to offer a white version from the start – something that Apple is unable to do with the White iPhone.

A recent article on Fudzilla mentions that Nintendo has no plans to launch a phone, saying that they will always be on top in the handheld gaming market. I find it hard to understand why the company is so confidant, especially when we heard that the rumored PlayStation Phone from Sony is said to be more powerful than an Xbox 360.

Nintendo hopes that its upcoming 3DS will help to pick sales up once again, but I would not hold my breath. Now it is time for Nintendo to increase their portfolio, a phone would be perfect, just not certain how they would design such a device?

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