DCEmu have posted up a picture of the new Sony PSP camera, which it got from ITMedia.

If the photo is to be belived, and theres no reason to doubt it as far as I can see, the PSP camera looks to be a slightly industrial looking device with a small rotary dial to one side.

The camera is apprently going to be a whopping 1.3 Megapixels, which puts it on a par with the sort of camera built into mobile phones – about 3 years ago.

Now I understand that this is perhaps not aimed at the pro-level photgrapher, and is intended to be more of a fun accessory for the PSP, but the specs hardly look promising. If Sony wants people to ditch using their camera phones, they are going to have to come up with some pretty cool features on the software side, otherwise this may not take off like Sony are no doubt hoping.

If the camera is integrated into some video conferencing ability then I can see it being a popular choice for those people who want to see who they are speaking to (thoughts of late night sex chats instantly springs to mind). Of course, before video conferencing can take place, Sony need to get some form of VoIP system in place.

Another thing that may help sales of the PSP camera is some photo editing software built into the PSP, which would allow for some fun games, especially if they created an online flickr’esq type service that allows users to upload their PSP created photos to be shared.

Perhaps most importantly is the need to get the camera integrated into some decent PSP games, other than for customising the face of your avatar within some third person shooter. Imagine playing SOCOM or similar and having a small video pane open in the top right of the screen, showing your teammates in real time as you play multiplayer co-op matches. Then again, if you play multiplayer co-op matches with ugly people who like to play naked, this might not be the best idea.