Marketing Week brought some odd news to our attention recently: Sony Ericsson, joint partnership between super-conglomerate and small Swedish phone company may not be going so well. Sony, responsible for what seems to be 20% of the technology, film and music producing done worldwide, is questioning it's partnership with Ericsson over the PlayStation brand for a phone.

Considering that Ericsson has recently held up it's part of the bargain, "Sony Ericsson global head of marketing James Marshall says the company is still in line to hit its 10% growth forecast for the global handset industry for 2008." it's easy to think everything's fine. But knowing how well the iPhone is doing and how much talk of it working as a suitable gaming platform has come about, Sony must be peeing themselves.

Or, more likely, researching the hell out of how to make a cost effective phone with a reasonable PSP on the inside. The current PSP's are far too big to be phones, and obviously there's the control problem (full touchscreen means no room for buttons, buttons means small screen). And finally, how Sony is going to make it work, worldwide, with keeping it all priced below $300 with a service plan.

Maybe AT&T will step in and subsidize the hell out of it so we can all buy PSPhones for just $250 and monthly payments of $70. That way, everyone's happy! 

Looks like that news we broke awhile back did mean something. 

Marketing Week