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Sony confirmed at this year's CES what everybody knew at least three days earlier: that the P2P calls are heading to the PSP.

Unfortunately for early adopters of Sony's wonder-gadget, Skype will be available only for the new, trimmed PSP (launched in September 2007 and dubbed PSP 2000). The P2P application, which currently boasts with more than 9 million users at every given moment of the day, will be installed through a firmware update arriving in late January. The Japanese electronics behemoth has not given any details as to why only PSP 2000 owners will enjoy free calls. Actually this is bad news for Sony too, because the install base for the lighter portable console is smaller than the install base for the original model.

The new feature will appear in the Network section of the PSP's menu and users will be able to call their friends/relatives using Wi-Fi hotspots or the wireless connection in their homes. Skype is just another application that shows the handheld's versatility and prowess. The PSP, besides playing games, can play movies (in UMD format only when the firmware is original, but with cracked firmware other formats are available too), music (MP3s, WAVs, WMAs, ATRAC3+ and MP4s), and it can be used as a portable Internet device.

UPDATE: we've recently got word from gaming magazine PlayStation Universe,  that the reason for which Sony decided to offer Skype only for PSP 2000 is the RAM constraint.

“Although PSP-1000 and PSP-2000 are identical in basic functions, there are differences in hardware specifications to some extent and, for that reason, PSP-2000 may differ in features from PSP-1000. We had studied the possibility of supporting Skype with PSP-1000 but had to give it up because of the smaller size of  main memory on PSP-1000 series,”  said Nick Sharples from Sony.

The first PSP model has only 32MB of internal RAM, while the PSP 2000 boasts with double that amount.