T-Mobile is diving into wireless multiplayer gaming, using its Wi-Fi hotspot network in coffee shops, hotels and airports nationwide to offer free trial connectivity to Sony PlayStation Portable, the most popular connected gaming platform on the market.

Sony has announced a new firmware upgrade for the PSP, which includes connectivity software to the T-Mobile network over the handset’s embedded Wi-Fi radio. T-Mobile will offer the service free to PSP users for six months as long as they log in to a hotspot by March 2008. After the trial period ends, T-Mobile said it would offer discounted plans to those customers, presumably after they are hooked on the service.

Though the service won’t have the ubiquitous coverage of T-Mobile’s new UMTS network being deployed now over its recently acquired Advanced Wireless Services spectrum, the service is the first move by T-Mobile to create an application specific service that doesn’t run on a mobile phone or laptop. Users will be able to surf the Internet and use other data applications on the Wi-Fi network in addition to gaming.