There's a New PSP in Town

Posted on Thursday 27th January 2011 at 13:26 by laszlow

At a special Sony event a few hours ago in Japan, Sony debuted their sleek, sexy new PSP. Boasting a 5-inch screen (a PSP 3000 has a 4.2-inch screen), two analog sticks, 3G network connectivity, an OLED touchscreen, a touch-sensitive back panel, front- and rear-mounted cameras, tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, backward compatibility with downloaded PSP games, and no UMD drive. Instead, the NGP (New Generation Portable, the current acronym of choice for the unit) will use a new memory card that stores games and game data with a large amount of flash memory.

Uncharted, WipeOut, Resistance, and LittleBigPlanet will each have games on the new platform, plus new games Little Deviants, Reality Fighters, Gravity Daze, and more. Even though the system cannot read UMDs, I assume that it can still read Memory Stick Duo cards, as it would take a major hit in the backward compatibility claim if it were not the case (I was unable to pinpoint this information). To demonstrate the NGP's backward compatibility to downloadable PSP and PS1 games, a Capcom representative played the recently-released Monster Hunter Portable 3rd on the system.

Many of you probably heard some leaked info about the "PSP2" a number of months ago. While much of that information has turned out to be true (dual analog sticks, touchscreen), none of the leaked pictures were accurate and several of the leak sources claimed that the PSP2 would have a UMD drive.

The new PSP will be out in Japan this holiday season. There is no current news on a release date anywhere else in the world. So plenty of time to save up, right?

Source: Basic info (Kotaku), Hands On (Kotaku), Additional info (Kotaku [again {sorry}])

Posted in: Gaming Industry News

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laszlow

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Comments

Rangers51

Comment 1: 2011-01-27 14:44

They really threw the kitchen sink at that thing, didn't they? Surely it's going to cost a fortune, but I'll be curious to see what sorts of games show up for it that I'd be interested to play, as well as the support for the MSPD (which is a format that I wish would just go away, to be honest - it's far too expensive and proprietary).

Neal

Comment 2: 2011-01-27 15:04

The two pieces of information I'd be interested in learning are the price and the battery life. Right now it looks beautiful and powerful, but if it's $500 and only lasts 90 minutes, it's just a sexy joke.

sweetdude

Comment 3: 2011-01-27 15:22

I haven't owned a handheld since the first gameboy. First thoughts, this will lower the price of PSPs when it's out so I might buy one cheap in a year or so. Between buying an expensive handheld with a dubious game library or a cheap handheld with an established list of quality games, I'll go with the latter. I think the ridiculous quality of the graphics on this thing will mean it'll be mostly big name titles. Maybe some good, some not. I don't know how Sony is going to build up a variety of games from different studios outside its own, especially considering it's competing with the 3DS which is probably going to be cheaper, a lot more popular and have more games. The risk would be a lot higher. I'm really not sure about this one.

laszlow

Comment 4: 2011-01-27 16:51

Quote (Neal @ 27th January 2011 10:04)

No word on price, but... it should have between 4 and 6 hours of battery life.

Smash Genesis

Comment 5: 2011-01-27 18:25

First question:

Will it have a Final Fantasy game on it?

Second question:

Will it have a Harvest Moon game on it?

Third Question:

Will it have Tales game on it?

Fourth Question:

How much does it cost?

Fifth Question:

Why did it take Sony so long to announce something we've known about for months?

(Questions 1 and 5 rhetorical, as I KNOW the answers, questions 2 and 3 are unanswerable as of the time being, but the answers are most likely "Yes" and question 4 probably won't be answered for a while.)

laszlow

Comment 6: 2011-01-28 13:46

Some not-exactly-new info: memory card inputs. The linked Joystiq article points out the NGP's two memory card slots, but it's unknown if any of them can support MSPDs. In any case, it's obvious that Sony expects NGP users to want a LOT of memory available for the new machine.

fates

Comment 7: 2011-01-29 05:29

Probably gonna be $399.99.

I predict this whole thing playing out just like the DS - PSP did. PSP/2 starts off slow, picks up with AA titles late in the game, while the DS/3DS sells pretty high (I don't think the 3DS will meet the DS' numbers... but it will still sell) throughout.

Death Penalty

Comment 8: 2011-01-29 17:00

I'm amazed at how buck-wild they went with this. I'm mostly in the same boat as sweetdude, however: my main interest will be to see if the PSP cost comes down. I haven't had a handheld since the GBA, but there are enough interesting games on the PSP that if it got cheap enough I'd be willing to buy. As for this new handheld, I just am not interested enough in handhelds to ever want to fork over whatever it will end up costing. Yes, I'm rather racist against handhelds. And even though I would much rather take a PSP than a DS, I would still prefer a console playing on my TV any day.

Tonepoet

Comment 9: 2011-01-30 20:42

Quote (laszlow @ 27th January 2011 09:51)

Quote (Neal @ 27th January 2011 10:04)

No word on price, but... it should have between 4 and 6 hours of battery life.

The battery life is marginally better than the 3DS but still disgraceful. This generation may be seeing Gamegear, Atari Lynx or even possibly Sega Nomad levels of playtime here and all were criticized for battery life. I suppose it doesn't matter as much with built in rechargable batteries, since the player doesn't have the choice of throwing away their money with more common disposable batteries, go back to the store to replace them or lose one of them, all of which which were major contributing factors to the discomfort.

On the other hand playtime is also a factor that might never change and this is definitely a huge detractor on that. For one thing not being allowed to immediately replace stock might be a major inconvenience for those of us who'd had good habits in keeping extra stock on hand, especially with the advances NiHMs bring to rechargable AA batteries and the ever decreasing cost of disposables. The other thing is that the purpose of the devices is to allow us to always be entertained anywhere untethered and anything less than 8 hours may fall short of this goal, since that's how much free time the average person has leftover after dividing the day up between their job and sleep. An unlikely desire considering the daily chores but not entirely unimaginable for the passengers I'd presume to be a part of the core demographic.

I don't think it's unreasonable. I'm not even asking for the minimal standard of 10 hours per go Nintendo set back in 1989 and maintained up 'till now. The entire Gameboy line saw improvements in this department up until the SP, which had 18 hours of life. The sole exception so far is the GBA Micro, as it sacrificed playtime and amongst other features to make it small enough to fit snugly in your jeans' coin pocket but it's a bit of a black sheep of the family, in that it wasn't quite so popular as its brethren. Apple's marketing suggests that built-in batteries can be made far more efficient than user replaceable ones to boot for a small variety of reasons. A claim that can at least be partially corroborated by comparing the performance of the GBA to the physically smaller, longer lasting GBA SP.

Quote

Considering that the goal of the handheld is to be small, I can currently think of few reasons why they would want that sort of redundancy other than to support:

Quote

Even though the system cannot read UMDs, I assume that it can still read Memory Stick Duo cards, as it would take a major hit in the backward compatibility claim if it were not the case (I was unable to pinpoint this information).

As the space could be allocated for other more crucial features. *coughalargerbatterycough* However assuming I'm wrong on that count, partial backwards compatibility isn't entirely unprecedented. The 360 only has xBox compatibility on a title by title basis, so they can certainly advertise it without full support. While Microsoft's actions don't speak for Sony, the PS3 has a history of its revisions diminishing support for the feature, first eliminating the emotion engine, then the ability to play PS2 games altogether though leaving PS1 compatibility intact.

While I still can't fathom what other reason they could have for needing two dedicated memory card slots, I wouldn't be surprised if the new device was only compatible with games you download directly from PSN. Another possibility is that Sony could release some sort of memory card adapter, like they did for people transitioning from the PS2 to the PS3.

Finally, I hope Next Generation Portable is only a code name, because Sony needs a new acronym. NGP already belongs to SNK's Neo*Geo Pocket and things could get somewhat confusing amongst handheld enthusiasts if things should remain in their current state.

laszlow

Comment 10: 2011-02-25 17:00

Almost created a new thread for this, but figured that it fits in with this nicely.

PSP getting a price drop

Title says it all. Core PSP 3000 bundles are dropping to $130 US, and several games are dropping in price. For Square-Enix fans, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII will have its MSRP changed to $10 and Dissidia: Final Fantasy will have its MSRP changed to $20. laszlow's personal favorite PSP game, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, is also dropping to a paltry $10. This is both for retail and for PSN's online store.

BONUS EDIT: Five PS3 games are also dropping in price. Now if you own a PS3 and haven't played Uncharted 2 or Heavy Rain, you have even fewer excuses.

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