It is now official: Sony announced yesterday afternoon that Skype calling service, including free conferencing and text chat capabilities, is due to be a feature of its PlayStation Portable, presumably with a future firmware upgrade.

While this doesn't exactly make the PSP the equivalent of a roaming cellular phone, this will give PSP users both presence and connectivity when in range of a Wi-Fi router.

Skype users will be able to place calls, not only to other PSP users but to other Skype users on PCs and Macs, as well as to landline and mobile numbers. That latter connectivity, of course, requires an up-front purchase of talking credit, which can apparently also be handled directly through the PSP.

Perhaps the biggest feature this new partnership will give PSP users is presence, which will enable others worldwide to see when their contacts are available. Whether this feature will be leveraged for future online games is yet to be determined.

Furthermore, exactly when the firmware upgrade will be available is unknown, though typically new firmware is made available very soon after an nnouncement is made.