PlayStation NGP – First Comments

Now that Sony has unveiled the first info on the successor to the PSP, the various mega sites have beaten the NGP to death with their coverage, predictions, options, etc.

To keep things short and simple, I will offer up a few comments of some items that caught my attention.

The NGP will contain 3 motion sensors, including six-axis motion support. It will be interesting to see how well this capability is implemented in games; hopefully it will not just be a cheap gimmick.

The NGP is set to have front and rear cameras, which should be perfect for practical applications such as video conferencing. Gaming should also benefit – basically a built in PlayStation Eye Camera (or two).

The NGP will have touch screen technology. This one is pretty obvious, but when there was a lot of speculation around the PSP Go, a touch screen was in demand.

GPS will be built into every NGP. There should be plenty of apps in the work for instructions to the nearest bar or cheapest place to buy some new NGP game.

The NGP will support Wi-Fi. Let’s just hope this works if you are off the 3G network, either by physical location or lack of funds to support your mobile phone needs.

And oh by the way, the NGP is obviously a phone. I thought I would save that one for last and make a clever joke, but in retrospect, the implementation and execution were poor.

All of this is great stuff, but what about the price? Predictions range from $249-349 according to analysts quoted on PlayStation LifeStyle. The PSP has notoriously poor battery life, so Sony better be able to muster 15+ hrs for a full charge.

Of course for a portable gaming device, games matter. Sony is starting off with a solid library of PSOne Classics to play on the go, Minis, and whatever else is in their current PSP PSN stable of games. Will that be enough? I still hate the fact that not all UMD based games are available in digital format on the PSN. At this point in the PSP lifecycle, I believe that is unlikely to change, and I think there is almost zero chance that Sony will offer some sort of conversion utility.

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