Sony has finally made an official announcement regarding the release of their highly anticipated successor to their PSP portable gaming device, plus a new PlayStation mobile experience that won’t require the use of an actual Sony-branded phone.
At the PlayStation Meeting 2011, which took place in Japan on Thursday, Sony President and Group CEO Kazuo Hirai introduced the corporation’s new handheld gaming device currently dubbed the Next Generation Portable (NGP). Hirai also unveiled plans for the upcoming PlayStation Suite, a new online gaming store with mobile-gaming content that will be compatible with not only the NGP, but also Android-based smartphones, tablets and other “PlayStation Certified” devices.
“With NGP we carry on [our] rich history of redefining industry standards and raising the bar for consumer expectations for what portable gaming can deliver. Designed to blur the lines between interactive entertainment and reality, the NGP will offer Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity,” Sony Social Media Manager Jeff Rubenstein states in correspondence with PS3News.com . “The 5-inch OLED front multi-touch display will bring brilliant images to life and the multi-touch pad on the rear will allow users to engage with the game and characters with a simple movement of their fingertips. Additionally, services created specifically for NGP will be available on PlayStation Network. These services are designed help users take their gameplay, as well as interaction with other gamers, to new levels.”
Additional NGP features will include an ARM® Cortex™-A9 core processor, a six-axis motion sensing system, GPS, both front and rear-facing cameras, Bluetooth, and flash memory card support. The device will also be backwards-compatible with PSP games.
A specific release date and pricing for the NGP is still forthcoming, but Sony has stated that the device will be available by late 2011, likely just in time for the holiday shopping season. The first NGP marketing trailer is now available on YouTube, but it doesn’t really show any of the device’s capabilities.
In addition to the NGP, a new online gaming marketplace called PlayStation Suite could be Sony’s answer to the PlayStation Phone that gaming enthusiasts have been asking for.
“PlayStation®Suite (PS Suite), announced today, will also closely coordinate with NGP,” the company states in the official NGP press release. “The newly developed and released game content for Android™ based portable devices can also be enjoyed on NGP. As a result, users will have access to not only the most leading-edge content, but also some of the more casual experiences that typify the mobile market place.”
One thing that is going to be interesting to see is how Sony handles the 3G connectivity of the device, including carrier partnerships and data plans, as there was no specific information in the announcements. The company may not even have all of those details worked out yet. We’ll have to wait and see as we get closer to the launch date.
