What Sony’s NGP Has and 5 Things it Needs

Last night, Sony held a press conference specifically for their PlayStation brand. We all already knew this was going to be Sony showing their new portable device. Currently codenamed the NGP or Next Generation Portable, this device will be the successor to the PSP system. It has a similar form but it’s a tad bigger than the 3000 model.

Here, have a concept trailer.

The NGP looks to be a stupidly powerful portable games system that will apparently be able to rival the graphical power of the PS3. This seems be true as Sony demoed a 20fps cutscene from Metal Gear Solid 4 being run in engine on the NGP. It’s also confirmed to be backwards compatible with PSP games, minis and the PS One classics that the current PSP can play. Whether this means that UMD transferring will finally show up is another question however.

The device looks like it will support trophies which will likely combine with the trophies on your PS3 through the same account and to ensure that they’re updated properly, the NGP will support 3G alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. As expected it has access to the PSN store, appears to have a web browser and friends list. It will probably have a messaging service too. It would be interesting to see if they will incorporate the PSPlus cross game chat with it too or any kind of voice support or maybe even video chat using the front facing camera.

There is also a rear facing camera in the middle of the portable. It has the same style of motion control as the PS Move controller, a compass and multi-touch OLED screen on the from and a multi-touch pad on the back. Mercifully it also has two analogue sticks – not that weird nub thing that the PSP has, actual sticks. There’s also the standard button inputs.

Now that you’re all bored of reading all the stuff that’s in this thing, here’s a list of things I think should be included.

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1. Connectivity with PS3/4

One of the things I love about the PSP is that I can boot up my new PS3 from downstairs and stream music or videos, even a few games to it. It’s a really nice feature that I think should be included. Especially seeing as the NGP is meant to be as powerful as the PS3 anyway.

2. Cross compatibility

Speaking of being as powerful as the PS3, does that mean we can transfer our PS3 games to it and play then the go? I know this is unlikely but it’s worth wishing for. If the PS3 and NGP are closely enough related it would be feasible that a game designed for one would run on the other, despite the lack of a second trigger on each side and maybe no clickable thumb-sticks. In which case there’s always the touchpad or screen.

3. Sale of physical media alongside digital

Sony have officially announced that you will be able to buy games on flash cards in stores, so they’re not yet ready to phase out retail stores, probably due to the failure of the PSP GO. However it’s likely they will want to eventually, in which case games should launch in both retail and on the PSN at the same time. Sony should also be competitive with their pricing. Why should you pay more for a download than something physical? Surely the cost of producing the packaging and physical media could be enough of a reason to drop the download price. This would also boost popularity of the downloadable titles due to the lower price and extra convenience over going out to a shop or waiting for your delivery. Downloadable titles should be priced similarly to preowned games in stores currently. They should also lower in price slightly the older they get which also doesn’t seem to happen with online stores.

I don’t think that Sony are the only ones who should follow this logic either.

4. Free 3G for users

The Kindle is a great deal with access thousands of books and a good battery life alongside a free 3G connection allowing owners to access the Kindle book store wherever they are (Theoretically). Amazon paid for the 3G in their e-book reader so the users don’t have to pay for a contract on top of their device, if Sony did the same for the NGP then that would be awesome. Admittedly, the 3G Kindle is an extra £50 compared to the non-3G model (here in the UK). This is where Sony could make further use of PSPlus or a new service. 3G isn’t wonderful for gaming but there are newer and better mobile Internet services showing up. Take a leaf from Microsoft and add a charge to online mobile gaming on the NGP over a newer service that works faster and more efficiently. Or just bundle it with PSPlus if it’s cheap enough. People have shown that they will pay for online gameplay in the form of Xbox live and many, many MMORPGS. I doubt anyone would complain a huge amount. Especially considering the current state of the PSN. Any money that can be put towards making that service better is money well spent.

Huh? What’s that faint glow on the horizon? Is that a flaming mob? Are they coming for me?

5. Games. Lots of GREAT games.

One thing that the PSP lacked was the games to make it great. Partly because everyone bought a DS and pirated their PSP titles so no one bothered developing for it due to the huge losses that would ensue. Sony have revealed a list of franchises already being worked on for the NGP and also a list of third-party’s with dev-kits.

WipEout is on the list; therefore I’ll probably wind up buying it. For some reason I can’t get enough of that series. I bought my copy of WipEout HD before my PS3 even arrived just from playing a friends copy and the PSP versions of it. I love my futuristic racers. There are also other well-known Franchises and even a Call Of Duty game planned. Yaaaay.

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The NGP looks like it will be a beast of a machine. However, Sony have yet to announce a price for it. They are aiming for a holiday release this year. (Although that’s probably just in Japan) We’ll bring you more news on this as it shows its face.

Click for a high res image

Here are the official stats for those of you who want it.

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