Sony had their conference launch conference for their upcoming handheld that will battle Nintendo’s 3DS in the dead of the North American night last night, so here are the details on both the PSP2 (now officially known under its working name “Next Generation Portable”/NGP) and a new service called “Playstation Suite”:
- Playstation Suite allows devs to port PS1 games to Android-based smartphones
The NGP:
- Will be able to play content made in Playstation Suite
- Will be able to play downloadable PSP games from the current generation
- Has built-in wireless N, 3G, and GPS network capabilities
- Will no longer use UMDs, now using flash-based SD card-like cartridges that will hold the game, its save file, and any DLC that comes out for the game (see picture of cartridge in gallery at the bottom of the page)
- Will be out this Christmas season in Japan (and possibly worldwide).
Find out all about the NGP’s specs, features, and announced games after the jump…
The NGP features:
- A retina display-like 5-inch OLED touchscreen with a resolution of 960×544
- A trackpad-like multitouch surface on the entire back of the system opposite the screen
- Two micro analog sticks — that’s right, not nubs or circle pads
- Built-in microphone
- Has front and rear-facing cameras of unspecified resolution
- Six-axis control similar to PS3 controllers (3-axis gyroscope + 3-axis accelerometer)
- A built-in electronic compass
- Bluetooth connectivity
- Huge approximate dimensions of 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (see comparison chart at the bottom of the page)
- An ARM® Cortex?-A9 core (4 core) CPU (can be clocked anywhere from 800Mhz to 2000Mhz, actual NGP clock not announced)
- A SGX543MP4+ 4-core GPU that nobody knows much about yet
- A location-specific service app called “Near” that shows you via GPS what other NGP gamers around you are playing and letting you instantly buy said games for yourself. Also performs Google Maps-like creepy tracking for where you walked that day.
- A code base so similar to the PS3 that games can be ported between the consoles in a very short amount of time and look similar on both devices
NGP games and tech demos shown:
- Uncharted
- Killzone
- WipeOut
- Resistance
- LittleBigPlanet
- Hustle Kings
- Hot Shots Golf
- Little Deviants – The Maw-like demo that showed bottom touch pad changing in-game terrain
- Yakuza 4 PS3 port (tech demo)
- Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 port (tech demo)
- Lost Planet 2 PS3 port (tech demo)
- Monster Hunter 3rd PSP download compatibility demonstration
- Call of Duty (announced only, no media)
Depending on the price of this portable and it’s battery life, it may give Nintendo something to think about. If we see great battery life or a low price (neither terribly likely) on the NGP, everyone will wonder why Nintendo was unable to do the same. For now this is a very impressive showing from Sony and we’ll keep you posted as new details emerge. Check out the gallery below for some product and off-screen game shots (courtesy of Kotaku) of the NGP.
