Funny how we make all this progress and pack a ridiculous amount of processing power in a handheld device, only to then put in a bunch of extra effort just so we can play Super Mario World on yet another device.

Maybe it is the game being good, maybe it is just nostalgia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game...

With 240 million sales, there's probably a little Mario in each of us. New releases and/or perpetual emulation of Mario games is the one constant we can expect to find in future generations of devices with new and old generations of people alike grabbing coins and jumping on Koopa shells.

Yes, though the new Super Mario Bros. Wii is surprisingly good, and not just a copy of Super Mario World.

Do you think it is going to play games using java like with regular android phones or do you think they will have some other sort of setup? As an android developer this could be very good.

We can already use C++ to develop games for Android.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

It should be trivial to run the built-in official 'console' software on another Android phone (with adequate hardware specs), correct?

I'd be surprised if they don't have custom graphics hardware, of some sort, in there - I imagine the last thing Sony wants is to commoditise themselves by providing the same hardware platform as normal Android phones.

Even if they don't have custom hardware, I'd be shocked if they didn't have some sort of silicon DRM to stop the software running elsewhere.

It's pretty much the same Qualcomm hardware as every other Android phone (plus the physical controller). I agree that Sony will probably break new ground in Android lockdown.

Only if Sony doesn't do a thing to lock the software up. Maybe they could add SPUs to the phone, or something that would lock the software to the platform.

Should pick up? What system do you want emulated that there isn't already a great emulator for?

iPhone / iOS.