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NGP 'LiveArea' UI to support Trophies, PSN friends and messaging
LiveArea is NGP's "game-oriented communication platform," according to Sony. In other words, it's the device's (touch-controlled!) user interface -- apparently replacing the XMB -- featuring access to the PlayStation Store, Trophies, PSN friends, messaging, the browser, and other applications. Each game will have some form of LiveArea presence, too, apparently keeping you up to date on news and even its other players (in case you bore of simply playing the game). Additionally, LiveArea will include the "Near" feature that tracks your location over time and creates a map of where you've been. (That's not creepy at all!) Read more about it here.
Uncharted, Killzone, Resistance, LBP ... and Little Deviants among 'NGP' games in development
Sony's bringing out its biggest guns for its new little game machine, the device currently known as "NGP." A slide revealed franchises currently in development for the newly announced handheld, including familiar names like Hot Shots Golf, LittleBigPlanet, WipEout, Killzone, Resistance, and PS3 showpiece Uncharted. Sony's Shuhei Yoshida showed off the Uncharted game, and revealed some controls new to the series: you can touch the screen (or press X) to jump, swing the NGP back and forth to swing on vines, and climb using the device's rear touch panel "as if you're climbing a vine with both hands."The new IPs sound a bit more, um, eclectic: Gravity Daze, Reality Fighters (an augmented reality title), Smart As, Broken, and the delightful-sounding Little Deviants. Update: PlayStation Blog confirms the complete list of game franchises noted at PlayStation Meeting 2011 with NGP iterations in development: Call of Duty Broken Gravity Daze Hot Shots Golf Hustle Kings Killzone LittleBigPlanet Little Deviants Reality Fighters Resistance Smart As Uncharted WipEout
PSP successor is official, codenamed 'NGP' (Next Generation Portable)
Mock it up, talk it up and leak it out all you want, only Sony has the power to actually bring the so-called "PSP2" into the world -- and that moment has come. The "sequel" to the PlayStation Portable was made official today (like, just now!) during a press event in Japan, looking every bit as -- well, that thing looks like the PSP, doesn't it? Codenamed "NGP" -- that's "Next Generation Portable" Entertainment System -- the device has been designed with five core tenets buzz phrases in mind, according to Sony: Revolutionary User Interface; Social Connectivity; Location-based Entertainment; Converging Real and Virtual; and PlayStation Suite Compatibility. But what does that mean? For starters, the new hardware features dual analog sticks; a 5-inch OLED display (with 960x544 resolution -- four times the PSP's); a front touchscreen and rear touchpad (woah!); 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS; and, for good measure, the same six-axis motion system that propels the Move, plus a three-axis compass -- oh, and we can't forget the front and rear cameras (those come standard these days). Of course, the NGP plays games, too, which will be offered on new flash memory–based cards (so long UMD!) that feature added storage for DLC and game saves. The NGP is coming this holiday season. Update: Complete hardware specs, provided by Sony, are posted after the break.
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%
Sony reveals PlayStation Suite framework, store for Android gaming
Sony just dropped a bomb on the Japanese stage -- not a single PlayStation Phone, but a PlayStation Phone experience for everybody. The company unveiled a cross-platform software framework called PlayStation Suite, which sounds rather boring in those words, but what it amounts to is an official PlayStation Store filled with games for your Android tablets and cellphones. Sound familiar? Sony's starting with an emulator for existing PSOne titles and is promising an Android game store later this year, but soon it might be much, much more: the company's calling PlayStation Suite a "hardware-neutral" development framework to make games portable for all sorts of handhelds, and says that "new and exciting content" is also on the way. Sony will sponsor a first-party licensing and quality-assurance scheme called PlayStation Certified, and provide the marketplace as well, likely hoping to attract major game developers to build top-tier titles for mobile and get a piece of the action too. If your device doesn't have a pop-out gamepad handy, it looks like PlayStation Suite will emulate touchscreen controls, and you won't necessarily need a phone to get in on the action, as Sony says the next-generation PlayStation Portable will be compatible with games developed for PlayStation Suite right off the bat. Doesn't look like we're getting any details on game prices or compatible devices, but we imagine one particular phone will change all that at Mobile World Congress next month. Update: Looks like PlayStation Suite requires Android 2.3 at a minimum, and it's PSOne, not PlayStation Portable titles that will be emulated here, despite Kaz Hirai's quote during the festivities. PR after the break! %Gallery-115181%
