For all its technological impressiveness, the PSP has been clinging on by its fingernails for quite some time now. Sony could never quite convince the public they wanted to watch full price movies on a small screen, when they could buy the DVD cheaper, and the DS Lite really did a number on its sales figures by offering that much more accessibility and a catalogue of great games.

Most industry veterans will agree that a hardware revamp that takes a few more steps forward than the PSP-3000 is the only way for Sony to rescue the beleagured handheld, particularly in the face of economic meltdown.

A survey uncovered by Kotaku might well be the first steps toward this actually happening, as Sony has apparently been petitioning the gaming public to tell it what kind of features would tempt them to go out and buy another PSP.

The questions brought up subjects such as an internal hard drive, touchscreen, GPS, a camera, text/instant messaging, Bluetooth support, an ebook reader and a variety of other options (no mention of lots of decent games though).

Were the more alluring suggestions included in a future PSP, it’s rather ironic that it’d come out as an iPhone without the actual telephone - so, an iPod touch, then.

But isn’t there already one of those on the market, and doing very nicely? Perhaps Sony ought to be trying to come up with a new device that offers something original and enticing to the modern technophile, just as the DS Lite and iPhone did.