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Sony's NGP at GDC 2011: more video of the quad-core marvel in action
The headline just about says it all -- we've got some new footage (as opposed to what we've seen before) of Sony's NGP for all you gamers to drool over. Today at GDC 2011, we saw a live demo of Uncharted, Little Deviants, and the NGP's augmented reality capabilities. We were, once again, impressed by Sony's latest piece of gaming hardware, but don't take our word for it, see for yourself in video footage above and after the break. And, oh-by-the-way, we gleaned a few new tidbits about the handheld powerhouse that developers may want to know -- retail game cartridges will be only 2GB or 4GB in size (notable because the average PS3 title is 9GB), and Sony recommends that devs looking to port PS3 titles to the NGP should simplify their models, shaders and textures to make them work. Now if only Sony would spill the beans about how much the thing'll cost. Update: We didn't completely care for how our original Uncharted footage looked, so we uploaded a slightly higher-quality version. Enjoy!
Sony's next PSP (codename NGP): a closer look
Following the unveil of its bodacious next generation portable (NGP) PlayStation device, Sony let a swarm of journalists (including us) on stage to get a closer look at the PSP's dual-stick, quad-core successor. No touching, but we were able to direct our lens mighty close and compare the NXP with a PSP and PSP Go before the on-hand staff shooed us away. Enjoy the pictures! Update: And now we've got video for you as well! You know where it's at. %Gallery-115201% %Gallery-115205%
Sony's next PSP, codenamed NGP
Betcha didn't think this day would come, but it finally has. Sony has just come clean with its next-generation PlayStation Portable. It's actually codenamed NGP and will revolve around five key concepts: Revolutionary User Interface, Social Connectivity, Location-based Entertainment, Converging Real and Virtual (augmented) Reality. It will be compatible with the PlayStation Suite and is backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games and content from Sony's PlayStation Store. Specs include a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution, dual analog sticks (not nubs as on the current generation), 3G, WiFi, GPS, a rear-mounted touchpad, the same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the PlayStation Move, an electronic compass, and cameras on both the front and back. Available this holiday season. Wait... what?! %Gallery-115252% Games will come on "new media," not UMD anymore, but we're unclear on what sort of flash memory is being used. Sony's rather proud of the fact it's offering the world's first dual analog stick combo on a portable device, though we're more geeked about the quadrupling of pixel count from the original PSP. Sony's live event has been graced by demos of some pretty popular games, including Killzone, Resistance, Little Big Planet, and Uncharted -- with the latter serving as a demo platform to show off how the NGP's rear touchpad can be used to more intuitively climb up some vines. That touch panel on the back is the same size and positioned directly under the front OLED touchscreen, which allows for some pretty sophisticated controls when using the two simultaneously. The new console's UI will be called LiveArea, which has a bunch of vertically navigable home screens and built-in social networking through PlayStation Network. You can jump between games and the LiveArea without losing your progress and comment on your buddies' great feats of mobile gaming. %Gallery-115187% In closing its presentation, Sony trotted out Hideo Kojima to show off a cutscene from MGS 4 rendered in real time on the NGP. It was pulled directly from the PS3 version of the game and ran at 20fps, which looked very smooth indeed to our liveblogging eyes. Videos and Sony's full PR are now available below. %Gallery-115199%
Live from Sony's Tokyo event
<div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.engadget.com/liveblog/live-from-sonys-tokyo-event/"><img alt="" border="1" hspace="4" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/01/sony-tokyo-event-1254.jpg" vspace="4"/> </a></div>We're gonna level with you, we're not entirely sure what (if anything) Sony will show off at its <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/12/sony-to-announce-psp2-at-january-27th-tokyo-meeting/">Tokyo meeting today</a> -- other than "business [overview] and strategy," of course. All the same, with the rumor mill in high gear about a possible <a href="http://www.engadget.com/tag/PSP2/">PSP2</a> debut, we decided to take a chance and fly halfway across the world. Will it end up a worthy excursion with <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/kaz-hirai-non-confirms-the-playstation-phone-and-tablet/">momentous payoff</a>? Some fiscal and corporate chatter? A new Japanese ad campaign featuring a terribly dubbed Kevin Butler? Follow along!
Early PSP2 dev kit in the wild?
Well, this is interesting. VG247 has published what it says are pics from an early Sony PSP2 development kit. There isn't much to go by in terms of back story, and in many ways it looks more like a KIRF from Mr. Blurrycam's vintage collection than something for software testing, but let's hear what the site has to say: HD screen, two cameras (front and rear), microphone, two thumbsticks, and a rear "trackpad" of sorts, presumably akin to what we've seen on the PS Phone leak. VG247 later updated to say that a source claims it's an earlier version of the kit and that a revision has since been developed without a sliding screen -- a move to perhaps deal with (also rumored) overheating concerns. We know a PSP2 exists in some form, so this can go one of two ways -- either cleaner shots will be found, or an entirely different leak will surface later. Given the suspect Fall 2011 debut, we have plenty of time to wait around and see. [Thanks, Ross M -- no relation]
Hardware battle looms for theoretical successors to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP
It's a sorry state of affairs when a media player like the Zune HD has more polygon-pushing power than the latest handheld videogame consoles on the market. If rumors are to be believed, Nintendo and Sony will set things straight with their next-generation portables -- at least for a little while. We've already heard that the successor to Nintendo's DS will have Tegra power, but the current speculation is that it'll be a Tegra 2 chip, promising twice the power of the current iteration. On the Sony side the PSP2 is apparently shaping up to use an offspring of the IMG PowerVR graphics found on the iPhone, said to be theoretically superior to what the DS2 will be able to achieve but costing more, being more difficult to develop for, and not shipping until sometime in 2011 -- potentially a year later than the DS2. In other words it's standard operating procedure if these rumors are to be believed, but even if there aren't any surprises in this showdown we'll be there in the front row with popcorn to watch the bloodshed.
Sony unveiling UMD-less PSP with slide-out buttons at E3?
Whispers of a new or revised PSP have been growing decidedly louder as of late, and now 1UP's gotten a ton of new details from what it claims are "sources directly involved with the new system" -- our favorite kind of people, actually. Here's what they were told: UMD is out, replaced instead with options for either 8GB or 16GB of built-in flash memory. Also nixed is any hope of a "PSP-4000," with Sony opting instead to use a subtitle. Three rumored names include PSP Slide, PSP Flip, and PSP Go!, the latter of which borrows from Sony's pre-existing Go! brand and suggests there might be a built-in camera à la PSP-3000's Go!Cam peripheral. The same D-pad, analog nub, and face button configuration remains, but they now slide out from the bottom of the unit (see mockup, pictured). Expected launch is September for Japan and late October / early November for US, and coming with 'em are over 100 classic and new downloadable titles including Gran Turismo Mobile as a headliner. Sony's supposedly going official with all this during its E3 press conference in early June, and for now they're opting to give the staple "does not comment on rumors or speculation" response. That's one mighty intriguing rumor -- we can only hope it pans out.
