Sony NGP Announcement

On January 27^th 2011, in Japan, Sony announced its follow up the PSP (Play Station Portable). This new device is going under the codename “NGP” (Next Generation Portable) and is looking to be the rival/competition to the Nintendo 3DS.

So what is looking to change from the PSP to the NGP? Well, for starters, the UMD (Universal Media Disc) drive is gone. Sony’s1000 to 3000 series of PSP’s utilised the UMD to play games and movies; however they removed it from the Go series of PSP. It has also gone from the NGP. In its place, games will be stored on a flash based media card.

The next big change is the controls. The PSP suffered from a poor unresponsive d-pad, which Sony tried to improve in the 2000/3000/Go models, and only having one analog stick. The NGP has the d-pad (hopefully more responsive), dual analog sticks (making it feel more like a Playstation controller), however the changes do not stop there. The NGP features a touch pad on the back, an OLED touch screen on the front, and gyroscope and accelerometer controls. Sony is hoping all these control functions can help gamers be part of the game more.

On the connectivity front, the NGP will boast 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity. The NGP will also be able to connect to the Playstation Network, and will support trophies (a feature missing the PSP).

Graphically, Sony are hoping to deliver “near” PS3 level graphics on the NGP. This will be an impressive feat on a portable gaming device, but with the PS3 nearing 5 years old (it was launched in 2006) it should be possible.

The NGP’s user interface is currently going by the name “LiveArea”, and it replaces the PSP’s “XMB” interface (which is also used on the PS3).

The NGP will be backwards compatible with the PSOne titles currently available on the PSN Store…but it’s the launch titles that gamers want to read about/see in action. Sony have showed a trailer showing the following titles; Killzone, Little Big Planet, Wipeout, Resistance and Uncharted. That’s a lot of PS3 heavy hitters heading to the NGP.

So when is the NGP going to be released and how much will it cost? The NGP will have a 2011 release in Japan but for the rest of the world Sony kept both of these key pieces of information tightly under their belt.

The full on tech specs are:

CPU:
ARM Corte-A9 core (4 core)
GPU:
SGX543MP4+
External Dimensions:
Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Screen:
(Touch screen) 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
Rear touch pad:
Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
Cameras:
Front camera, Rear camera
Sound:
Built-in stereo speakers, built-in microphone
Sensors:
Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer)
Three-axis electronic compass
Location
Built-in GPS
Wi-Fi location service support
Keys/Switches:
PS button
Power button
Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left)
Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square)
Shoulder buttons (Right/Left)
Right stick, Left stick
START button, SELECT button
Volume buttons (+/-)
Wireless Communications:
Mobile network connectivity (3G)
IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1x1)
(Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode)
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (A2DP/AVRCP/HSP)