Reports say Sony will next month start to assemble a team dedicated to developing a PSP phone.

The PSP phone rumors are as old as the hills at this stage. Back in May, Sony Ericsson president Hideki Komiyama was quoted as saying a PSP phone "could happen." So it's not a guarantee that the company had solid plans to release a version of its popular PSP handheld gaming device that doubled as a cell phone but it cast a curious light on a previous statement from the company. In January, a Sony Ericsson spokeswoman said the company wasn't ready to lend the prestigious Sony Ericsson brand to a PSP phone just yet.

'In the past, we have been keen that our product proposition lives up to brand promise, and we feel at the moment the technical specs are not high enough to put such a prestigious brand on a phone.'

This past weekend, a Reuters report cites the Nikkei Times as saying Sony plans to set up a project team as early as July to develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player and Sony Ericsson's mobile phones.

We’ve kind of given up on the idea of a PSP phone. We’d rather have a decent phone and a decent handheld console rather than one lacklustre device that does both and needs to be charged every eleven minutes.