There, I knew subscribing to IGN's all-articles feed would bear fruit in the end - they've just debuted 'The Future Of The PlayStation Portable', describing, in handy hyperbolic terms: 'Over a dozen of the top developers tell us in a huge anniversary blow-out.'

The intro article is a bit, well, over-apologetic for the format, ("Hell, the Nintendo Ds is the best-selling game system of this new generation, period -- nothing stands up to it as competition. But just because Nintendo is winning, does that mean that Sony has lost?"), but the interviews are well thought-out, and there's some firm sense talked in the Planet Moon chat, for one: "The PSP needs to have a digital game distribution system. It's perfect for it and it will liberate the device in many ways."

Q's Tetsuya Mizuguchi has what I think is the best response, though: "While the PSP may have lost a bit of steam over the last year - especially when compared to the DS - we're hopeful that it will continue to provide quality entertainment for current and future users. There's still this image of PSP being mainly a "portable game device" rather than a multimedia entertainment device - that is, including myself, as I don't use the PSP other than to play games - so I'm looking forward to how the other possibilities and uses of the PSP will be promoted including the connectivity between PS3 and the recently announced Home. Now, if only it came with a hard drive..."