Over the past couple of weeks we have been hearing whispers that Sony has a new and more powerful PlayStation Portable (or PSP2, if you will) that it is planning to announce. Despite the whispers, Sony isn’t prepared to start talking about it yet, nor for that matter ready to confirm its existence.

Sill, at least one developer has gone on the record saying that they had access to the unit in-house and it was very powerful. It would seem that this does provide at least some evidence that Sony is likely to announce the new unit at some point very soon, with our sources suggesting that it will be officially announced in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Sony can’t be very happy about the leaks, but it does indicate that the manufacturer has not given up on a portable platform despite the recent lack of success with its recent PSPGo release. The PSPGo was ahead of the curve in many ways and featured a download-only format; it was strongly criticized by many, however, as it offered no way for previous generation UMD titles to be used on the PSPGo platform.

The revelation of a PSP2 already in the hands of developers (if true) isn’t a surprise, as it does take time for developers to get titles ready for the launch of the new platform. It is going to leave many to wonder what Sony could offer in the PSP2 platform to combat Nintendo, who continues to lead the portable gaming system race.