It is now all but certain that Sony will announce their next handheld video game system, the successor to the Playstation Portable, later this week at the ‘Playstation Meeting’. Regardless of what they say on Thursday, Sony will have an uphill battle. When the first PSP was released, the world was a different place. Sony, riding high on the massive success of  the PS1, hoped the PSP would become the Walkman of the new generation. That of course did not happen. Not only did the innovative, accessible controls of the Nintendo DS outshine the PSP, the subsequent rise of the smartphone made the bulky,…