Sony To Bring Next-Generation Portability To Your Pants - The UpStream

Sony To Bring Next-Generation Portability To Your Pants

posted Sunday Jan 30, 2011 by Jon Wurm

Sony To Bring Next-Generation Portability To Your Pants

Sony Computer Entertainment recently announced their PlayStation Portable 2 and gave us some neat hardware specs to drool over. This device is basically a PS3 for your hands and if that excites you, here is a list of what we can expect to see by the end of 2011.

- 5 inch OLED

- multitouch pad (backside)

- 1 front camera, 1 rear camera

- Quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor

- SGX543MP4+ gpu

- 960 x 544 pixel resolution, 16 million color

- 3 axis accelerometer

- 3 axis gyroscope

- Wifi (probably g and n)

- 3G Aircard (likely GSM, so AT&T)

- electronic compass

- GPS

- mic

- stereo speakers

- 182mm x 18.6mm x 83.5mm

To find out if Sony will put this hardware to good use, hit the break.

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The PSP2 otherwise known as NGP, "Next Generation Portable" will not only feature a slew of new hardware, we can also say good-bye to the XCrossMediaBar used in the PS3, original PSP and high end cameras, which is a potential upgrade but we won't know for sure until we see what they have in mind.

Don't get your hopes up for 3D on the first version of the device. Sony hasn't really been impressed yet with 3D on handheld devices and unless the 3DS does exceedingly well I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. The current design of the device also doesn't make sense for two screens.

Despite all the upgrades and changes to the device it is questionable whether the actual user experience will live up to expectations. NPG is a gaming device first and everything else last. You can look forward to franchises like Call of Duty, Killzone and Reality Fighters as well as access to PS1 games through the PlayStation Suite. Louis Ward, a research manager at IDC, also suggested that NGP running Android 2.3 could open up the doors to social games.

That makes sense. This will let them at very little expense expand the games experience to other devices.

I mentioned a 3G aircard in the hardware specs and currently there are plans for one model to be released with it. Of course you will probably need to get a plan with AT&T but don't expect to be able to use the device like a phone or for video chat unless someone hacks it. Sony Ericsson is in the midst of releasing a phone that is smartphone first, gaming device second and it wouldn't make sense to have products cannibalizing each other.

One of the things I wish Sony would give up is proprietary media formats. UMD was a total failure and they are continuing that tradition with another new format which in my opinion will only serve to hold the device back and Ward seems to agree.

All Sony products tend to fall short on the user experience, and that's what kills them. The NGP is no different. Sony is in many ways living in the first part of the last decade in terms of how they'll deliver content.

Are you guys excited for the NGP? I have to admit I'm interested in knowing more but still remain skeptical that Sony will have more success with the platform than in the past.

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