Exclusive Sega will next year launch a portable media player boasting enough functionality to threaten Sony’s PlayStation Portable, the Register Hardware can exclusively reveal.

Sega Vision: up to eight entertainment features

The PMP is to be called the Sega Vision and it’ll work as a videogames machine, in addition to playing films. The unit will feature an integrated camera for capturing still images and video. A built-in TV tuner will provide yet another form of entertainment.

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Sega Vision may also threaten Sony’s Reader range of e-book viewers, because books are listed as one of Vision’s features. The Sega PMP will also handle music and work as a voice recorder.

Sega Visions (left) sit next to iPod Nanos (right) in a London arcade's grabber machine

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Sadly, none of the machine’s technical specifications have been revealed yet, such as which music formats it’ll support, whether there’ll be on-board storage or how many megapixels the camera will have.

Sega told us that Vision will be launched in the UK at some point early next year, but a price hasn’t been set yet.

However, if you like what you've heard, then a handful of working models – believed to be the only ones in existence in the UK – are currently sitting in a central London arcade waiting to be won.

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