Eades: "There clearly is room for a hardcore handheld"

Following Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter's opinion that PSP2 is "dead on arrival" thanks to "saturation on the handheld market," Relentless boss Andrew Eades has said he believes a hardcore games handheld is still a relevant proposition.

"My personal point of view is that yes, there clearly is room for a hardcore handheld gaming device," he said, speaking to GamesIndustry.

"Do I think that that's the mass-market portable system? No I don't, I think that's an iPhone or an Android or an iPad, those are clearly aimed at a more mass-market audience. That doesn't mean that there's not a place for that. I don't know whether I agree with any analysts about it, it's up to Sony how they address the market they want to address."

The original PSP is still a strong performer for Sony, and was the most-bought hardware in Japan in 2010 with 2,729,718 units sold. The machine initially released in 2004.

Sony is yet to announce PSP2, which is expected to launch at the end of this year.

VG247 published the first ever images of the machine's dev kit last November.

Thanks, Eurogamer.