PSP2 finally announced

[zerocool84]

Yah, I'm thinking maybe that's the plan. Make the NGP/PSP2 "affordable" the same way the $600 iPhone is affordable, through subsidies provided by the mobile phone companies.

If that's the only way to buy it then I'd never get one.

 

[Thraxen]

Personal preferences will vary, and I'm just one consumer, but I don't think I would buy a PSP2 if the games were $40+ and I could not resell them.

I agree with your comments previous that pricing is key. I think that's another mistake Sony made with their PSP downloads. They needed to be cheaper than their UMD counterparts... at least new pricing anyway. At the very least it wouldn't hurt to have more Steam-like sales. Normal Steam pricing isn't often that great, but it's their regular sales and combo deals that people love.

Anyway, don't forget that the PSP2 is apparently going to have physical media. As I understand it Sony is planning on selling games on flash based media. So there might still be a used market for the PSP2 unless they implement some DRM system that ties those physical games to the system.

My main points were that the I don't think the lack of a used game market for PSP Go was the primary reason it failed and that dropping UMDs for the PSP2 is a good thing.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Getting rid of UMDs is a good thing overall. It would make the system even more expensive, make it bigger, and sap the battery life. It's a failed format and would be nothing more than an albatross on the NGP/PSP2.

Well, it would increase the cost a bit and definately the size and weight, but optical drives can be incredibly effecient in portable devices. My old MiniDisc recorder from 1999 could play for over 16 hours on a single AA battery.

And the replacement for UMD isn't downloads, at least not exclusively, but some sort flash based cartridge. That's probably going to translate into bigger manufacturing costs for the game publishers, which will of course be passed on to consumers. And the download price will of course be same as the retail price, if even it's cheaper for the publishers.

 

[tk149]

I just wanted to quote this a$$hat who's pretty good at being wrong. 😛

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/285779/news/sony-ngp-price-analyst-predictions/

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter believes PSP2 could sell for $250/£200 when it launches later this year, although Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian is anticipating a higher price point.

"It's a pretty impressive device, the screen is relatively expensive, and the feature set suggests to me that we'll see something in the $249/€249/£199 range," Pachter told us.

"I suppose it will sell incredibly well for the first year (would bet 15 million or so), and then it will succeed or slow based upon the availability of software, much like the original PSP," he added.

 

[blurredvision]

For $250, I'd be first in line. But yeah, I think Pachter will be wrong (again). I will be surprised if this debuts anywhere south of $299.99. Maybe the 3DS will bomb at $250 and scare Sony into selling it at a huge loss.

 

[Dacalo]

Just looking at the features, specs, and pricing of 3DS, I have a feeling it's going to go on sale in NA around $349.99

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

That thing is sweeeeeet. I hope it get's better developer support.

 

[iluvdeal]

I know it's meant for portable gaming, but I hope they include hdmi output so people have the option for playing games and videos on their TVs. If it rivals the PS3 in power, why not?

 

[zerocool84]

I know it's meant for portable gaming, but I hope they include hdmi output so people have the option for playing games and videos on their TVs. If it rivals the PS3 in power, why not?

It comes close to the power but plays it at a much lower resolution. Upscaling it to a tv would make it not look that good since the games are made for such a small screen/resolution.

 

[Ross Ridge]

I know it's meant for portable gaming, but I hope they include hdmi output so people have the option for playing games and videos on their TVs. If it rivals the PS3 in power, why not?

There's a good chance that it'll have some sort of TV output option. Current PSPs support component (and composite) output.

 

[Aikouka]

If I remember correctly, Sony originally sold the PS3 at a loss to help pull in more potential customers. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see the same thing here. They know that they can't just rely on the "fanboys" (hate to use the word) and people with plenty of disposable income as that's not nearly large enough of a user base to make this thing sell enough. Not to mention that they have to "convince" developers that this platform will be viable enough to develop for as the PSP did not do terribly well in the US.

As for the 3G, I'm looking at the Kindle as an example. If the 3G is purely used for small amounts of data (such as friend lists, etc), it might be possible for Sony to work out a deal where you get lifetime (or maybe just a set amount of time) for free.

I'm actually a bit curious about that touch pad on the back of the unit. It's such an odd place to put one that I'm wondering how well it will work. The thing is... people with smaller hands will probably have issues with really using the touch pad (to its fullest extent) while still easily accessing the front controls (and the front touch screen).

It's an interesting device and I still like my PSP. Heck, if they release Lumines for it, I'm there 😉.

 

[mmntech]

I'll admit I had a nerdgasm when I read about it this morning. However, Sony needs to start getting the devs on their side.

The PSP1 was a technical marvel in its day, but it suffered from low quality software and a lack of standout titles. That's what Sony needs to fix.

 

[ed21x]

It comes close to the power but plays it at a much lower resolution. Upscaling it to a tv would make it not look that good since the games are made for such a small screen/resolution.

actually upscaling from 960 x 544 to 720P would look fine, but because people would be expecting ps3, it will disappoint...

 

[iluvdeal]

It comes close to the power but plays it at a much lower resolution. Upscaling it to a tv would make it not look that good since the games are made for such a small screen/resolution.

Have they officially announced the resolution? I'd be okay with 480p tv output to play classic games. Also, Wii uses that rez so I think they can get away with including it as an option on the PSP2.

 

[MentalIlness]

http://www.psxextreme.com/psp-news/2182.html

Code name: NGP (Next Generation Portable). The goal: "to transform every aspect of people's life."

And so it has happened. Mere minutes ago, Sony's new portable unit was unveiled at the PlayStation Meeting in Tokyo. The sleek unit features dual analog sticks (yay!), Sixaxis controls, front and rear cameras, new game media, a larger screen, and even touchpads on both the front and back; it's quite the appealing machine.

The pictures shown at the event show the NGP from a variety of different angles, and other relevant data includes- flash memory, 3G support and WiFi, and according to what Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida said, the "graphics are PS3 quality." The screen will be 5 inches, larger than standard 3.5-inch smartphones, and it'll feature an OLED display that will look brilliant from all angles. It seems you'll be able to use either the touchpad or the micro analog sticks to control the character on the screen. "It's like the world in your hands," Yoshida stated confidently, and everyone seems awfully psyched. Rightfully so; this thing is pretty amazing.

A bunch of games are shown running on the unit, including Reality Fighters, LittleBigPlanet 2, Wipeout, Resistance, and holy God, even Uncharted. That's gonna be pretty insane in the palm of your hand... During the presentation, Yoshida was moving Drake around with the touchpad; he also uses the gyrosensor to make Drake jump.

At one point, Yoshida slid his fingers down on the touchpad on the back, and the main character slid down a vine. Simply by touching places, Drake will jump to desired locations, and you can even draw lines to new spots off in the distance. Oh, look an enemy standing on the edge of a cliff...flick the finger at him, and Drake shoves him off the edge.

From what we can tell, that's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, only with the NGP controls. Evidently, as far as the design of the unit, it's called "Super Oval Design" and although it's a little tough to gauge the actual size right now, the device appears to be about the same size as the original PSP. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the rear touchpad is 5 inches; the exact same size as the front screen, so where you put your fingers on the back matches up with what you see on the screen.

You can even use two fingers! Lastly, the NGP will boast a user interface called LiveArea, where players can learn about new games, access the PSN, and yeah, it's touch-based. There will even be a live feed so you can see exactly what your buddies are doing, if you're into that voyeuristic stuff.
The unit is due out for the holidays, and we'll be anxiously awaiting the price. ...any guesses?

 

[blurredvision]

Is anyone good enough with the math to state what the dot pitch would be on a 5" screen with 960x544? I'm wondering how that will compare to the iPhone 4 screen, which is almost perfection in my book (just needs to be OLED, like the NGP).

 

[Pheran]

It's not a PS3...

Just because something has costly hardware doesn't make it a good consumer item.

I honestly think Sony and Nintendo have gone bonkers releasing handhelds at unprecedented price levels during the middle of a global economic downturn.

I'm with Queasy on this one. Handhelds are supposed to be reasonably priced. I'll be sticking with my trusty DS Lite for the foreseeable future.

 

[Pheran]

Is anyone good enough with the math to state what the dot pitch would be on a 5" screen with 960x544? I'm wondering how that will compare to the iPhone 4 screen, which is almost perfection in my book (just needs to be OLED, like the NGP).

Assuming the screen is a 16:9 ratio (which makes sense from the pixel count), that comes out to about 220 dpi. The iPhone is 326 dpi.

 

[Dumac]

Meh, hardware is nice an all, but library is more important to me. PSP1 had a bad library, which is why it failed in my eyes.

Dual analogs are nice though.

I don't really get the point of the touchpad on the back?

 

[zerocool84]

Is anyone good enough with the math to state what the dot pitch would be on a 5" screen with 960x544? I'm wondering how that will compare to the iPhone 4 screen, which is almost perfection in my book (just needs to be OLED, like the NGP).

Definitely not going to be iPhone dpi.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Has anyone brought this up yet?

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/27/ngp-features-two-proprietary-card-slots-for-memory-storage-game/

Two new proprietary media formats? Has Sony learned nothing at all about their proprietary formats? I guess Blu-Ray must have convinced them that it works.

Something else of note is that it has a similar architecture as to what is rumored to be going in the iPad 2 (and likely iPhone 5).

As for pricing, it makes no sense to compare to phone prices, as those tend to have parts cost in the sub $200 range, and with how quickly phones change it means they can't take advantage of say 5 years worth of economies of scale that a game system would, which makes Sony selling for a loss initially more feasible.

Not only that, but I wonder if Sony couldn't up economies of scale even further by putting this SoC into other products (media streamers, Blu-Ray players, psuedo netbooks, tablets, phones, and plenty of other products). They could even make this into a home media streamer. I wonder if their partnership with Google might open up a media store and app store development for Sony (basically, Google gets media store for Android, Sony gets Android App sharing).

The timing is certainly interesting, and I do feel this is a bit rushed, so maybe they have big plans for this to help with the PS3 issues. There were rumors of an external co-processor for the PS3, maybe this could be used for that (where they'd use the PS3 for extra audio capability, upscaling the image, etc). It would allow them to get by longer without a PS4 and I know plenty that would like PS3-esque graphics in a fully portable system. For people with a Wii, it could even be an upgrade if they haven't got a PS3 or 360 already.

Will definitely be interesting.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Here's another interesting point (Carmack's Twitter): http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/27/ids-carmack-comments-on-ngps-theoretical-performance/

Low level APIs will allow the Sony NGP to perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs.

So, even if other products start offering the same/very similar processor setups, this would maintain some extra capability, which would give it probably a solid 2 years worth of having pretty close to top line performance compared to high end phones. Maybe longer, as I expect that once they get to quad core setups, they'll then focus on shrinking that performance as they'll be needing to do something about getting usable battery life out of this stuff. They're actually already having issues with that now, so its not out of the question that this could have very good performance for long enough to really get a solid foothold. If the pricing is right (I think $299 for Wi-fi only out of the gate), and this might be quite enticing. Even better if they can do $249 and maybe $299 unsubsidized cellular version.

A couple of other things that I thought were interesting from Carmack's Twitter feed that could be potentially relevant:

Upcoming mobile designs are thermal limited. Interesting to think how a dock could provide cooling as well as power.

Relates to mobile-as-desktop/console: plugged in, same device does 60fps instead of 30, or 1080p instead of 720p.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Two new proprietary media formats? Has Sony learned nothing at all about their proprietary formats? I guess Blu-Ray must have convinced them that it works.

The fact that the game cartridges are proprietary is no big deal, it's not like you're going to be able to use them on some other machine. A new memory card format for expanding the storage capacity though would be more than a little ridiculous at this point. Apparently Memory Stick media isn't expensive enough or something.

Something else of note is that it has a similar architecture as to what is rumored to be going in the iPad 2 (and likely iPhone 5).

Well, it's similar to current iPads and iPhones. Just with more cores, an OLED screen, and lots of buttons.

 

[ed21x]

Well, it's similar to current iPads and iPhones. Just with more cores, an OLED screen, and lots of buttons.

and a ton of preprogrammed API's to make use of those vertex shaders. we're looking at a ton of spectacular effects that can be performed by the GPU without much performance penalty that won't be available on the iPhone 5/iPad2 even if the processors have similar specifications. This is one of the main reasons the ps3/xbox360 performs on the level of pc's of much higher specs- they have a ton of options built in to accomodate lots of the fixed functions used for games.

 

[Beev]

Looks nice, but will probably be overpriced. It's silly to say it will cost anything more than $299, though. Sony isn't stupid. A $400+ handheld will not sell.