The handheld console market is a very tough one, with sales and profits split between the two major Japanese gaming companies, Sony and Nintendo. While the former has as target hardcore gamers, and delivers them popular titles, like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops or Monster Hunter, the latter aims at a broader market, that of casual games, and delivers titles almost anyone might enjoy.

When Sony's PlayStation Portable was launched, in 2004 for Japan and 2005 for the rest of the world, analysts and critics didn't really give it much chance of profitability. But despite these warnings, the PSP got a pretty good start, and, slowly but surely, managed to make a considerable profit. It has benefited from two major revamps, which brought a slimmer design and better hardware, in the form of the PSP-2000, dubbed Slim and Lite, and the new PSP-3000, which was launched in October.

Now, even though just two months have passed since the new PSP hit store shelves, Eurogamer says sources have confirmed that a fresh version, dubbed the PSP-4000, is already reaching the end of its development, and that Sony might announce it at the end of 2009. The site claims that this could be the end of the regular PSP handheld console, and that Sony might launch after that a new portable system, dubbed by industry analysts the PSP 2.

Although such rumors have been dismissed by Sony, through the voice of its European president, David Reeves, who has stated that there are no plans of a new PSP, it seems that a successor might be under heavy development. Eurogamer also suggests that a lot of developers are already creating games for this future console, which would bring a variety of innovations.

Even if all of these are just rumors for now, you can never be too sure about the projects big companies have under development. Let's hope that Sony will come forward with an official statement about the future of the PSP and of a possible successor.