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Engadget interview: SCEA's Jack Tretton talks Sony NGP, announces (and then un-announces) PlayStation Suite for PS3
Ever since his candid and humorous E3 2009 Sony keynote introduction -- wherein he thanked the audience for showing up despite the big news (PSP Go) having already been leaked -- we've always had something of a soft spot for Jack Tretton. We managed to have a sit-down with the SCEA President-CEO following the company's big Tokyo meeting, a non-working NGP unit in tow. For a brief moment, Tretton "confirmed" that PlayStation Suite games (currently slated for Android devices) would work on PlayStation 3. We asked rather directly, to which he responded, "Yes, they will. Yeah." By the next question, however, he explained that he might've misspoken and wanted to clarify that Suite is only NGP right now. It should come as no surprise, then, that there was no talk of Suite for any other devices, be it Bravia sets or Google TV. Tretton said there was at least one compatible Android device currently on the market but wouldn't elaborate -- given the 2.3 requirement, we're presuming he meant the Nexus S. We weren't able to get him to budge on the issue of the NGP's price, but we did ask him to opine on the Nintendo 3DS's $250 tag. Instead of offering friendly competitive jabs, he said only, "I think if the quality's there, then the people will find a way to buy it, within reason... I think that if you could create content that consumers see as compelling, they'll find money that they didn't think they had." A bit too reminiscent of former boss Ken Kutaragi's old adages, but hey, it's not like we expected a sub-$300 sticker, anyway. Some other highlights: Tretton wouldn't definitively say whether or not original PSP titles are in Suite's future -- "at this point, it's PlayStation One games, but I think it can go in a number of directions." This runs a bit counter to what Kaz Hirai said earlier in the day, but either he might've misspoken or the translator erred. The controller overlay we saw used as an example at the event was just that -- an example, with no guarantee of future use. That "holiday 2011" launch applies to at least one territory, but Sony was "ambiguous for a reason" (i.e. simultaneous global rollout is a dream but far from a promise.) We probably won't have a clearer image until fall rolls around, sometime after E3. No discussion on battery life, but Sony is "certainly look to improve upon [original PSP]." For what it's worth, that one measured about 4.5 to 7 hours at launch, and Sony eventually sold an extended-life pack. PS Suite will have non-gaming apps. A WiFi-only version? "We haven't made any determination on models yet," which is infinitely more vague than the confirmation of non-3G SKUs from SCEE president Andrew House. Will Sony or a Sony partner make a flagship device to show off the Suite? A, dare we say, PlayStation phone? "Stay tuned" was all Tretton would say, followed by a laugh. Hey, at least we acknowledged the elephant in the room. Full transcription after the break. %Gallery-115252%
NGP battery life likely comparable to PSP
A 1UP report quotes Sony head of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida saying that the NGP handheld will have "about the same [battery life] as the original PSP." The PSP's battery life varies considerably from around 3 hours if the UMD disc drive was whirring away, to much longer if played off flash storage. Sony's official estimate for average PSP operation time is 3-5 hours. Meanwhile, Eurogamer has Sony Europe honcho Andrew House saying the device will have a "good, solid battery life because of two factors." The dual delights of life extension are apparently the card-based media (instead of UMD, which requires moving parts) and the OLED screen. Those potential power savers are joined by energy-sapping features like a four-core CPU, 3G, and other factors, helping explain the PSP-like battery life.
GameStop taking NGP pre-orders ... for $999
At the very bottom of GameStop's listing for the NGP is a notice: "official pricing and release dates have not been announced by the publisher." But that's not stopping the retailer from taking pre-orders for Sony's newly announced handheld -- for a whopping $999.99. Before you faint, though, remember that "these are estimates only and subject to change." Talk about a horrible estimate (we hope). Hey guys, why not wait to take pre-orders until the system, y'know, has a name? [Thanks, Howard!]
id's Carmack comments on NGP's theoretical performance
John Carmack, id Software's technical director, reminds us of our technical incompetence daily on Twitter. Yet, one tweet managed to catch our attention and make some semblance of sense to our puny brains. Carmack expects "the Sony NGP to perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs." That should theoretically give Sony's handheld a competitive edge over the next slate of Android and iOS devices. "Low level APIs" may enable developers to get the most out of the NGP. Essentially, low-level APIs give the developer more direct control. However, it's unclear if Carmack is speaking out of first-hand experience -- we don't see id Software/Bethesda on this list of NGP developers.
Video: 'Little Deviants' shows unique use of NGP's rear touchpad
It turns out that the NGP game Little Deviants doesn't just have the most amusing and cute name in the handheld's known lineup -- it also has the most interesting use of that inexplicable rear touchpad thing. As shown on stage at last night's PlayStation Meeting, players manipulate said deviants by moving their fingers along the touch panel, which raises the ground on screen, causing them to roll. It's as if you're putting your finger through the system to gouge the game world!
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%
Watch the NGP 'concept video'
Weren't able to attend the PlayStation Meeting in Japan? Don't worry. You can watch the concept video that introduced the world to the PSP2 NGP right after the break.
Your first look at Sony's 'NGP' handheld
Sony sent out lovely product shots of its new handheld, the NGP. If you're dying to see what the crazy rear touchpad thing looks like, or what it looks like from the side (a lot like an iPhone 4, strangely) then you're going to be in looking-at-hardware heaven. The power button is on the top this time! That's different. And it's a button instead of a toggle!%Gallery-115191%
Sony's next-gen PSP (NGP) has a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, quad-core GPU as well
You know that crazy next-gen PSP (NGP) with multiple touchpads, dual analog sticks, and quadrupled resolution that Sony just trotted out? Yeah, it's got a quad-core Cortex-A9 and a quad-core Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU doing the grunt work within. We've never seen a handheld this powerful. Then again, considering the darn thing won't be launching until this holiday season, maybe quad-core parts will be the least Sony will need in order to match up to the "super phones" coming up this year. We're just wondering how long any of these souped-up portables will last on a charge. Full spec sheet after the break.
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%
Live from Sony's Tokyo event
We're gonna level with you, we're not entirely sure what (if anything) Sony will show off at its Tokyo meeting today -- other than "business [overview] and strategy," of course. All the same, with the rumor mill in high gear about a possible PSP2 debut, we decided to take a chance and fly halfway across the world. Will it end up a worthy excursion with momentous payoff? Some fiscal and corporate chatter? A new Japanese ad campaign featuring a terribly dubbed Kevin Butler? Follow along!
Live From Sony's PlayStation event
This is where it all happens -- well, this is where we'll tell you about it all happening. Tonight, we'll find out what Sony has in store for us. Will it be ... some kind of handheld gaming device? Or will Sony defy expectations by continuing to pretend that the PSP successor doesn't exist? Or maybe it'll talk about the other handheld it's pretending doesn't exist! Chances are, something will officially exist after today's event. Let's find out together!
Reminder: we'll be live from Sony's Tokyo event tonight at 1AM ET!
Heads up: we're the sort of people who'll drop everything and get on a 12-hour flight (sometimes longer) to Japan just in case Sony's "business strategies" meeting turns out to be the platform from which the company unveils its oft-rumored PSP2. If you happen to be awake, the fun starts around 1AM ET tonight (which is actually tomorrow, but hey, you get the message). Link to our impending liveblog? Why, we never thought you'd ask: here you go!
The Next Big (Little) Thing: The Story of the PSP2 (so far)
(This, and every other image of the PSP2 included in this post, is not representative of the final design of the device.) Once again, we stand on the precipice of a major Sony press event with a mountain of evidence suggesting that the announcement of a new, PlayStation-branded gaming console is mere hours away. Much like the leaks surrounding the PS3 Slim in the weeks preceding its revelation, the rumors buzzing about the PSP2 -- not to be confused with the Xperia Play smartphone (though we wouldn't blame you if you did) -- are wide-ranging and, oftentimes, pretty darn conclusive. We've collected all the major points of the PSP2's nebulous history and arranged them in as comprehensive and critical a manner as we can muster below. Of course, we can't speak with absolute authority about the accuracy of any of the suggestions therein -- Sony will perform that arduous task for us at 1 AM ET tonight, during its Tokyo-based press conference -- but, with luck and determination, we should be able to separate the credible wheat from the impossible chaff.
Engadget Podcast 230 - 01.24.2011
This week in consumer electronics was full of culture. Or maybe it was full of color -- we're not quite sure what the difference might be, but there was a lot of weird / cool news in the CEO, handheld gaming, and tablet worlds. The point is, we've got another weird / cool podcast on our hands that you haven't listened to yet and you need to take care of that, like, five minutes ago.Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, #1 Digitimes bestselling author Paul MillerProducer: Trent WolbeMusic: Superstition00:04:15 - Steve Jobs takes medical leave from Apple, Tim Cook taking over daily operations in his absence00:10:22 - Apple turns in record Q1: $6b profit on $26.7b revenue, 16.2m iPhones sold00:23:20 - Apple's invested in a 'very strategic' $3.9b component supply agreement, but what is it?00:25:10 - Asahi Glass introduces Dragontrail for consumer electronics, puts the Gorilla on notice (video)00:25:48 - Larry Page taking over as Google CEO, Eric Schmidt will remain as Executive Chairman00:35:30 - Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number, maybe (update)00:44:53 - Exclusive: HP / Palm's webOS tablets -- pictures, plans, and more00:45:42 - HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage, Beats audio and Tap-to-Share smartphone integration00:49:30 - HP calls us out, implies it's got even better scoops at February webOS event00:53:20 - HP's first webOS tablet may start shipping in March, fulfill longstanding promise01:06:00 - Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)01:06:22 - Motorola Xoom priced at $800 at a minimum, according to Verizon leak01:14:52 - Nintendo 3DS coming to US March 27th for $249.99, Europe first on March 25th (video)01:19:10 - Live from Nintendo's 3DS preview with Reggie Fils-Aime01:23:22 - Bloomberg: Sony PSP2 to debut next week, PlayStation Phone at MWC01:23:47 - This fan-made PSP redesign is sexy01:25:15 - PSP2 to be based on iPhone-esque PowerVR GPU, rival original Xbox in power?01:27:52 - The Engadget Show returns next Sunday with Steve Wozniak!Hear the podcastSubscribe to the podcast[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune MarketplaceDownload the podcastLISTEN (MP3)LISTEN (AAC)LISTEN (OGG)Contact the podcast1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @engadget @reckless
Report: PSP2 features OLED screen, will offer 3G data
We're expecting Sony to officially announce and detail the successor to the PSP later this week. In the meantime, Japanese newspaper Nikkei is alleging a few early details. Firstly, the portable will supposedly feature an OLED screen. Secondly (and more importantly!), the system will support 3G data, enabling over-the-air multiplayer and video and game downloads. In Japan, the service will be offered by NTT DoCoMo. And although the PSP2 will connect to cellular service, it won't make phone calls -- that's left for the PSP Phone to handle. The report doesn't detail possible charges for the 3G service and doesn't state whether there will be an option for a Wi-Fi only version. We'll be grilling Sony for all the details later this week.
Nikkei: PSP2 will have 3G cellular data, OLED touchscreen
We're only four days away from a supposed January 27th unveiling, but apparently there are still more juicy PSP2 rumors left to dole out -- Japan's often-reliable Nikkei newspaper reports that the handheld machine will sport a crisp OLED touchscreen and 3G data from NTT DoCoMo when it arrives later this year, with the latter enabling multiplayer action and even full video and game downloads over the Japanese cellular network. What's more, the paper confirms that the screen will be physically larger and powered by some potent new silicon. So, how will Sony differentiate this PSP2 from the PlayStation Phone and tempt you to buy both? The game system won't make calls. Note: In case you're not familiar, the image above is a relatively ancient reader mockup, and likely not representative of the final product. It is pretty sexy, though.