Is Sony making the NGP more like a Smart Phone?

While thinking about Sony’s games strategy and then focusing in on their mobile games area, this caught my eye:

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Sony may be planning to halve the originally intended amount of RAM in the NGP handheld, as a means to reduce the device’s price.

French website 01net claims that the version of the NGP without 3G capabilities will only feature 256MB instead of 512MB RAM. The amount of VRAM graphics memory is reported to stand at 128MB.

It is also suggested that the cheaper non-3G model will not include internal flash memory, but instead rely on a traditional memory stick. The site suggests that this is unlikely to be too problematic, while claiming that the size of the console’s operating system has also been cut.
 

The speculation on the source site is that this is to compete with the 3DS – which it could be. But I’d like to suggest that it is more about trying to position the NGP as a smart-phone-like device. If Sony wanted to put space between the NGP and other mobile devices then upping the power would be a strategy. However by narrowing the gap between say an iPhone 4 and the NGP (in price terms) you position it as an alternative.

the NGP