Sony has officially introduced the PSP’s heir at E3, the device formally known as the Next-Gen Portable or “NGP.” While it generally kept all the previously known features, it didn’t keep the NGP name, and they unveiled it as the PlayStation Vita – or PS Vita if you want to keep it short (for the record, we kind of liked “NGP” better).
Curious about what the upcoming Sony NGP has to offer? Well, so is everyone else. Or at least everyone who’s into handheld gaming. We all thought we’d have to wait until E3 to get some game previews, but Sony decided to whet our appetites early when they held a private event at the Sony Pictures soundstage in LA to show off some of games lined up for the NGP. The headlining title will be Uncharted: Golden Abyss (shown above). Other games shown include Hustle Kings, Sound Shapes, Super Stardust Delta, and a game that may or may not be called Wipeout (it’s a working title). Check out the preview videos for Uncharted, Sound Shapes and Wipeout after the break.
Sony gave a little more insight into their upcoming NGP handheld console at the Game Developer’s Conference. During his time on stage, Sony platform research manager David Coombes talked performance, mentioning that it’s going to run on a quad-core ARM based processor and quad-core graphics, but it still won’t be specced to match the PS3 in terms of performance. Theoretically, they could push the NGP’s chip up to 2GHz if they really wanted to, but they won’t on the final product. “Some people in the press have said wow, this thing… could be as powerful as PS3. Well, it’s not going to run at 2GHz because the battery would last five minutes… and it would probably set fire to your pants.”
Sony certainly looks like they have a handheld gaming gem again once they start selling the NGP. It certainly looks good, and the new features (5-inch touchscreen, touchpad, dual analog sticks, quad-core processor) should be able to compete with smartphones and whatever else is going to come out this year for mobile gaming. Problem is, all that tech is going to be expensive—that’s a 5-inch OLED touchscreen after all. According to the interviews after the presentation, here’s a few more of the NGP’s details.
First off, the pricing. While they didn’t mention a specific price range, Sony’s Jack Tretton told Engadget that “it’s not going to be $599” (that’s the price they initially pegged onto the PS3 during it’s launch), but you should still expect it to cost more than Nintendo’s $250. Also, it looks like they’re going to come out with a version without 3G connectivity, which would be a good, cheaper pick if you’re not into an always-on data connection.
Sony has just unveiled what certainly looks like the next-gen PSP, but called it the NGP (or Next Generation Portable). Whether the name sticks or not doesn’t matter (they could call it the Magical Hand Banana and we wouldn’t care), because at least we know what to expect now. According to the presentation, Sony’s new portable console will focus on five concepts: Revolutionary User Interface, Social Connectivity, Location-based Entertainment, Converging Real and Virtual Reality. Another key feature for loyal PSP gamers: this thing’s going to be backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games, as well as PS1 games from the PlayStation Suite.
