It’s been heavily rumored and long in the waiting but Sony finally came clean about the existence and their plans for their follow up to the PSP currently titled the Next Generation Portable. Here are the details that were revealed and leaked in the past 24 hrs:
Playstation Meeting 2011
It was all about their strategic plan heading forwards in terms of networking their devices and their overall goal towards the future.
Major announcements:
– Ken Kutaragi was in the building
– PlayStation Suite, which is a cross-platform initiative on Android phones and tablets, will release this year
– PlayStation Certified, which is an initiative to get PS certified games on other devices, release this year
– They plan to have PS one games available and showed touch based controls overlaid on top of games
– Next Generation Portable, no real official name given, NGP is the code name aka Next Generation Portable
Device Specifications:
– definitely looks like the existing PSP, cleaner and the back is smooth and curved
– 2 analog sticks
– six access motion controls
– new game media (flash based carts)
– large screeen
– touch pad on the back
– Front and rear camera, with a microphone
– 5 inch OLED, 960×544 resolution
– 3G plus WiFI
– GPOS
– 4x resolution of PSP
– Touch screen
– Touch pad on back of device
– PS3 quality graphics
– Released this holiday season, in Japan
– micro analogue stick
– downloaded PSP titles work on NGP
– they showed all the major PS3 titles on the NGP
– little big planet, killzone, uncharted, resistance
– they also showed a “reality fighters” which is an augmented reality game, basically plays the fighters in the real world with whatever the camera is looking at
– the analog sticks on it are a new “micro” design based off the dualshock controller
– they played uncharted live and showed mechanics of touch and analog movement
– there was an instance where drake was climbing a vine and climbing was simulated by using two fingers on the back touchpad
– basically the controls are PSP + PS3 dualshock + iPhone-esque controls, there is a lot of potential here on how portable gaming can be played
– the games looked great, not quite PS3 level, but there was a lot of polygons and lighting going on, it’s no wonder why they demo’d uncharted
– there is honestly just so much being announced
– LiveArea UI, kinda similar to android but no XMB
– trophies, PS store, messages, friends, browser, photos, etc all on the LiveArea UI
– 3G allows for GPS, so live location based entertainment, map tracking, etc, seeing who is playing what in your area, all real-time updates
– in essence, this is live marketing, based on users in your area or areas you visit, what they are playing, to which you get directed to the PS store, if you’re interested
– this feels like really new stuff at the portable level, imagine social networking except designed for gamers
– they showed Hot Shots Golf
… dude this is just TOO much to try to report, basically you know when you play golf video games, the presenter rotated the NGP vertically and you could see down the course at a new angle, the gyroscope allowed for a different camera angle of the game, from the photos it was a very interesting depth of field example from a portable device
-the NGP and Playstation Suite are compatible
This leads to the belief that the Xperia: Playstation Pocket is just a phone that is Playstation Suite compatible and not a true Playstation phone. The only thing the Xperia thing has going for it, is actual controls versus touch only controls. An impression visually of the portable was it was like holding a 65″ HDTV in your hands, the screen is that amazing which was no surprise given it’s OLED.
Capcom ran an emulation version of the new Monster Hunter as a portable version (pretty sure this NGP from sony is going to sell like bananas overseas, NGP is a terrible name at this point but that’s the code name and what I have to refer to it as)
– they showed a realtime cutscene of Lost Planet 2: “Just like the PS3. Only difference is the geometry capabilities. The same lighting shaders, same physics as the PS3.”
– no new titles announced yet, no surprise really, this isn’t E3
– there were more camera angles of the NGP, it’s rather thin, maybe the width of a finger
OH… downloadable PSP games will work on the NGP
SEGA is up next
– Yakuza demo real being shown, interesting to note more focus on the full facial animations versus the shaders in the Lost Planet 2 demo, it was the Zombie version of Yakuza being shown
TECMO is up next
– Dynasty Warriors game where you touch the enemy to kill them instead of button mashing, lol
– some different control elements, all a work in progress, looked like Dynasty Warriors
Hideo Kojima time…
– so he basically had a cutscene from MGS4 rendered in realtime running on NGP
– “Hideo caveats that the clip was actually pulled straight from the PS3 version and rendered on the NGP, which is rendering it at 20 fps. Naturally some graphical reductions will happen for any actual title on the NGP, but it’s still pretty impressive.”
– “Hideo envisions using the exact same game on the PS3 and the NGP. You play the game on your PS3 at home, and out and about you play the same game and same save on your NGP. A beautiful dream, indeed. “This dream is going to come true in the near future, and right now I’m working on this project. I’m sorry right now I can’t disclose further information, but I’d like to present what we’re doing at E3.”
EPIC games time…
– showing the iPhone game Citadel and another Android game, same game but a lot more going on screen
Activision time…
– Call of Duty for NGP
and…. I think that’s it. I think the design is initially looked rather bland based on it looks like the old PSP, the image I attached makes it much more appealing however. There was a rumor awhile back that they had to abandon the slider design of the PSPgo because of heating problems. I do prefer the brick design over the slider, the analog sticks popping out as they are, makes you wonder about the people who put this stuff in their pockets. The back is curved and is interesting, the screen is huge though. There was just so much, a lot of social aspects, friends, networking, etc are all planned. But despite the design, the tech of this thing is really amazing. It feels like a whole new way to portable game versus say what the 3DS is offering. I still have reservations on the price and no battery power was announced which is obvious.
It’s still early but also late, I’m sure other technical bits will get announced over the next 24 hrs. But that’s it for now.
