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Sony Reveals the Next Generation Portable Console
UgLyPuNk writes "Of course it's not called the PSP2, because that would be too obvious and straightforward for the games industry. For the moment, at least, you'll be looking forward to news about the NGP – the Next Generation Portable." ARM® Cortex-A9 core (4 core), SGX543MP4+, Front and Rear camera. Rear touch pad, GPS.
Putting a touch pad on the back is actually rather clever. The back is almost never used for anything but battery compartments and whatnot. Of course, having input devices on the back means that when you put it down, it'll either be screen down, or touchpad down. That touchpad had better be ready to last through explosions, otherwise they are probably going to start being broken quickly.
The mere announce will hurt the yet-to-be-shipped 3DS sales.
That's the first thing I thought when I saw NGP, seems people have short memories nowadays.
* Quad Core A9 CPU
* Quad Core PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU from Imagination Technologies. (They make the PoverVR 530 featured in Motorola Droids, PowerVR 535 in iPhone & iPad, and PowerVR 540 featured in Galaxy S devices, and playbook)
* 5" Multi touch OLED display with 960 x 544 res.
* Rear multi touch pad
* Front and rear cameras
* Three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer, three-axis electronic compass
* GPS
* Dual Analogue sticks
* Bluetooth, 3G and wifi connectivity
It's definitely less novel than the 3DS, and a lot more capable, but then again, if I'm going to drop ~$400* on something like that, I might as well buy an iPad or a fancy smart phone. I think by making this thing ultra feature-full, they're blurring the line between the things they're competing against a lot more, and I think that does carry some risk at backfiring. Would I rather have a fancy gaming/media device and a simple phone, or vice versa. It's asking a lot for people to purchase high end devices on both fronts, and so they're going to have to make a choice. I don't think that choice is going to be overwhelmingly in favor of Sony. *Yes I realize there has been no official price announced, but looking at the specs, the device has to cost sony around ~$450 to manufacture. I expect a ~$400 price point.
I'm more interested hearing about the next next next generation console.
I've heard its really next generation stuff!.
Does anyone actually care about these any more, with smartphones around?
will it run OS/2?
rewriting history since 2109
I saw a presentation yesterday by some guys who do health care lab system automation. Pretty cool what they do these days. They were saying that, with some of the work that they are doing in imaging and processing images, Sony actually gave them a top secret next gen playstation prototype to use. So, the advances of the gaming industry, are... already helping research on next generation medicine.
How is that for some unexpected crossover?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I hope we get some decent games too. There's way too much half-baked Disney-animation licensed crap on handhelds already.
It's great and all, but the thing looks HUGE. How can you call it portable if you can't even fit it into a pocket? Even the largest smartphones tend to fit in a pocket (the only one I've seen personally that you can't is the one I keep seeing at Best Buy manufactured by Dell, even that might be able to fit).
Also, we're getting rid of the XMB? The interface presented looks a lot like the one from that fruit company.
Wasn't there already a portable with the initials NGP?
I wonder what type of insidious DRM this thing will have.
I find it hard to see how such a device would be successful in the current market. In order to be on par with the expansive libraries currently available on the Nintendo DS, the Sony PSP, and Gameboy systems, they would pretty much have to have some sort of backward compatibility with the current PSP. But then, what's the point of spending money on a new handheld if all you get (by the time they plan to launch) are rehashes of games you may already own? On top of that, there is nothing in the specs that screams "I must have that because it has this new cool feature" -- in fact, there is really nothing in the specs list that impressive. I read and say "yeah, so what.. most smart phones will be as if not more powerful" by that time.
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Oh wait... I just RTFA.... Wireless *and* more space than a nomad? Wow, Sony's really hit this one out of the park!
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"Never Attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity..."
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The real question is how will they be distributing games to the system? If it is, as some have speculated, download-only, I will skip this platform altogether.
If it uses optical storage exclusively, the battery life and load times will likely be even worse than the PSP. What would be nice is if they actually made use of "Magic Gate" to allow optical games to be installed to compliant MemoryStick for better load times and battery life (given of course that the optical disc is present); probably will not happen, but would be nice.
driving (can't play)
A lot of people carpool, ride the bus, ride the train, or fly often.
at home (prefer the full screen console)
I don't know whether this system will have TV out, but PSP-2000 had EDTV out and PSP-3000 had EDTV and SDTV out. Besides, I've gathered from comments to articles about the PC vs. console war that a growing number of PS3 and Xbox 360 games have only online multiplayer, not local multiplayer. If someone else in the household is playing the full-screen console, and the game lacks offline multiplayer, you need to wait your turn, and one way to do that is on a handheld.
the exclusives eventually end-up being ported to PS2 or PS3.
For one thing, not all of them are. Where's Me and My Katamari, the sequel to the two PS2 Katamari games? Where's Metal Gear Acid or Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops? For another, you need to own both a PS2 and a PS3 to get all the games that are ported, as many are ported to one and not the other.
I was looking forward to the Atari Flashback Portable that sadly never materialized. I really don't have a need or desire for a high-powered latest-generation portable console, but retro portable gaming I would pay for.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Unless you're suggesting that this is a class of product that should not exist, your disinterest in the psp2 doesn't really add anything to the conversation. It appears you are not the target demographic so you really only posted your comment to draw attention to yourself.
hijacking your post but... There are also references to PowerVR 543 in the iOS 4.3 beta. Although the A5 or whatever they call it will probably have a single our dual core GPU.
The reason is simple, it's impossible to make an interface that gives you the physical feedback you need for gaming(ie making sure your hand is on the right buttons and whatnot) with an interface that works well as a phone.
If your web browser supports Flash, please look up the Game Gripper. It turns your phone's slide-out keyboard into a gamepad.
Of course it's not called the PSP2, because that would be too obvious and straightforward for the games industry.
No, it's not called the PSP2 because that would be a poor choice of name, for a couple of different reasons. Why don't you stick to computer programming or whatever you're good at, and leave the marketing to the highly paid experts, hmm?
Front-Rear Camera and GPS... it's what my portable gaming device has always been missing! Still plays PS2 games. Oh wait...
I really hope that the main titles are at least a bit different than their PS3 counterparts. The talk of how easy it is to port a PS3 game has me a bit worried. I really enjoyed God of War 3, MGS4 and Uncharted 1&2, but I don't want to play them again. I don't mind new game experiences for the same IP, but they need to be different. The main reason I didn't get a PSP was because the games seemed to be lesser versions of the console games. The specs do make me excited for what is possible. I have a feeling handheld gaming is going to cost me a lot this year.
...and Sony are claiming that it will be “as powerful” as a PlayStation 3.
Sorry, but in no universe is the Cortex-A9 'as powerful' as a PlayStation 3's CBE.
...was showing that it won't be using the UMD, but what looked like an SD card of sorts. I'm excited about this mostly because the UMD is terribly annoying, it sounds like the PSP is snorting every time a game loads from it.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
OK, these guys JUST sued a kid last week for something I do not think should be illegal! I am NOT supporting them again, no matter how many buzzwords are in the specs. I know attention spans are at a premium, but this is ridiculous. Buy something else and open the market up...
Isn't that the Android Notification bar in the first picture in Ars' article? http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/ngp.ars
http://www.openpandora.org/
Between this and the PSP2, which will be available for purchase first? Pandora has a huge backlog of backorders.
Some flash memories have two write enable signals: one for a small "settings area" and a separate one for the actual program and its data. The 256 KiB flash in the Nintendo DS and DS Lite is this way; if you've ever bridged SL1 when installing the FlashMe softmod, you'll understand what I mean. So by the time it gets packaged, it is ROM. As for mask ROM vs. OTP memory, is there really much of a price advantage of mask ROM over flash if you're not guaranteed to be making millions of copies?
Give me back the functionality I paid for on my PS3 or I'm not fucking interested.
Will be more than likely low. I sure hope it gets at least 4 or 5 hours of gameplay. I would prefer 10 like the iPad though.
Putting lik-sang out of buisness, adding rootkits to their cds, crippling their hardware with artificial limitations. They're scumbags.
-- Linux user #369862
You are a liar.
At what point does somebody with outdated information become a liar?
I just did a Google Product search and the very first results for "unlocked smartphone" are under $200 USD.
(searches for unlocked smartphone, price range $150-$300, operating system Android) So it's changed since the last time I checked. But I've been told the cheaper Android phones have a dated CPU and GPU, which limits the complexity of compatible games. Most of them appear to have no slide-out keyboard, which means gamepads like the Game Gripper won't have anything to clip to.
I've been using my unlocked smartphone with T-Mobile prepaid for a long time without any problems.
A lot of the market for video games is parents of school-age children. How much airtime do you think mom would let an elementary school student or middle school student use? And when the airtime expires, does access to the home and launcher screens expire with it? I've read stories about the T-Mobile G1 locking to emergency calls only, and no apps, if the SIM isn't valid.
Get a spare battery?
The Google product pages fail to specify whether a particular phone has a removable battery. Did you mean a spare external battery that plugs into the phone's charge port?
will the built-in 3G make it fall under the law that says you can hack a phone to any network and to run any app?
So sony can't sue you
Let's say it's at&t data only and you hack it to run on t mobile what will sony do about that?
Now where's the promised scrotal touch pad?
I would hear a Sony boy complain about something using optical media. Maybe there is hope game systems will move away from media that requires load times again. :3
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
But why on earth would I buy a $300 handheld console when my $300 cell phone plays games?
It doesn't play games if the battery is dead from making calls. Nor can you make calls if the battery is dead from playing games. And a lot of phones don't have keyboards onto which one can clip a Game Gripper.
And if you're willing to sign on to a term contract
Which would cost at least $60 per month. I currently play less than $60 per year for cell phone service from Virgin Mobile USA because I split the cost of a land line with others living with me.
nor do I have a landline phone.
Do you have children? Would you trust each with a cell phone? Could you afford a family plan with a term contract for each?
Then please allow me to revise my question: Between the Pandora and the PSP2, which will be available for purchase first using a payment method with which many Internet users are familiar?
I ordered a Pandora from the first batch. Instead of getting one, though, I got my money back because taking payment months in advance of production violates the terms of service of PayPal and the credit card companies. How did you pay for yours?
PlayStation emulator [...] unlocked Motorola Backflip
I thought the Motorola Backflip was famous for being the first Android phone to lack the checkbox for "Unknown sources", limiting the user to only applications available on Android Market. Or are PS1 emulators commonly bundled with PS1 games in the Android Market? I don't have an Android phone on which to browse the Market.
So use the touchscreen. You do know that you can have an onscreen gamepad, right?
An on-screen gamepad doesn't allow pressing a direction and an action button at the same time on phones whose touch screen lacks multitouch. I seem to remember that some low-end phones still have a resistive touch screen. Nor does it let the player feel on which on-screen buttons his thumbs rest; he has to keep looking away from the on-screen action to know whether or not he's whiffing the buttons. For example, I tried Tetris on my DS and Tetris on my aunt's iPhone, and the iPhone version was far clunkier.
Very light callers with home phones who tend to stick with prepaid plans or heavy calling kids whose parents worry about the phone bill? If it's the former, that was already answered.
The advantage of a handheld video game system over an entry-level smartphone using a prepaid plan is that 1. a handheld video game system doesn't require a calling plan at all, 2. not all genres work well with touch control, and 3. I haven't seen evidence that all genres common to handheld video game systems are well represented on smartphones. Certainly, there's a reputation that games for smartphones have snack-level depth compared to meal-level games on handheld video game systems.
Why can't you do a normal Google, Youtube or GSMArena search on the exact model that you are interested in?
Because I don't know what model I'm interested in. Must I do a normal Google search, a YouTube search, and a GSMArena search for each individual model that appears on the first page of Google Product Search before I say anything?
Anti-lock breaks and rear parking?
No kitchen sink either?
So, they made the device different from smart phones in some ways, like bigger and more powerful, yet still having important features that smart phone games can take advantage of. It's possible both companies will be hurt by smart phones this time around, but I think the DS is going to get hit worse. Stylus based touch is outdated. People can get relatively the same screen size or larger with a smart phone. The 3D technology is already available in new Japanese Android phones. It's expensive and the games are as well. The 3DS will likely fall in price over the next few years, but the (new) game prices won't. I likely won't bother with either. I don't need a portable PS3, many PS games are going to be brought to smart phones now, and the DS design is outdated and not necessary. I wasn't that impressed with the Japanese phone based 3D. Many have complained about feeling uneasy and sick after 15 minutes. You can turn that feature off, but then you lose its main selling point and the justification for the more expensive games.
All these years, and Sony hasn't heard the biggest complaint about the PSP - the low mounted analog stick is in the very worst place. They should be above the other controllers, mounted where the thumbs will land. Heck, eliminate them entirely in favor of a touch pad.
My prediction is that this thing will flop, and flop hard. After all, unless the machine offers substantially better *games* than the PSP who gives a shit about a touch screen on the back?
SONY isn't going to sue you for installing apps. They may kick you off of their specific gaming network (like PSN or online gameplay) or void your warranty, but they won't stop you from using your data plan.
Keep in mind that this is a gaming device, not a laptop. I don't understand everyone's urges to use specific devices for other purposes. I own a refrigerator, but a towel is a much better way to cool off after a workout.
a year after you buy it... they'll disable the ability to recharge the battery...
If this has PS3 connectivity, won't we have the private keys within an hour of the device being launched?
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The only thing that surprises me is how unsurprising they designed the system. To be honest I thought they would have ambitions of toppling Nintendo's DS market share, but considering how this is all so very similar to the PSP / DS situation in 2004, I wonder if Sony is simply just content with the lower sales of the PSP and want to stick with their niche.