Sony's Next Generation Portable sounds like a portable gaming machine powerful enough to replace the PlayStation 3 home console, but it's actually meant to augment the experience, Sony Entertainment of America President Jack Tretton says.
Unveiled in Tokyo last week, the NGP offers controls that feel surprisingly similar to the PlayStation 3's controller.
Significantly, it is the first major handheld to have two thumbsticks, so developers making games for the PS3 won't have to reinvent the wheel when they bring the game to the NGP.
And the handheld, due out towards the end of 2011 at a still undisclosed price, also has quite a few extra bells and whistles.
It includes two cameras, a built-in compass and motion-sensing, 3G connectivity, a beautiful OLED touch screen and a pad on the underside of the device that is touch sensitive.
This underbelly sensor allows gamers to virtually push up into the game world with a touch.
The combination of sensors and controls, Tretton says, will deliver a new game play experience, including "the opportunity to interact directly with games in three-dimension-like motion, through `touch, grab, trace, push and pull' movements, controlled by the fingers.
"NGP is the newest addition to the PlayStation platform ecosystem and is positioned to be complementary to the experience offered with PS3," Tretton said. Announced just a week after Nintendo unveiled the price and release date for its glasses-free 3-D portable gaming machine, the 3DS, the timing of Sony's NGP news could easily be seen as thunder-stealing.
And while Nintendo's 3DS is set for a March release and NGP is only promised for sometime this year, there's a good chance consumers will start comparing the two.
But I don't think the two devices are really competing for the same audience.
The 3DS seems to push Nintendo's whimsical approach to gaming even further into "non-gamer" territory, delivering an experience made as exciting by its technology as by its games.
The NGP feels more like a PlayStation 3 on the go, a device that could allow you to finish playing the game you started on your PS3 and television, sitting on your couch, with a portable that offers nearly the same experience. Tretton said that while they looked at the "competitive environment" when designing a new device, the NGP was developed as part of a portable strategy within Sony Computer Entertainment.
What he's getting at, I believe, is the NGP's greatest potential, that ability to blur the line between home console and portable console.
There are several things we still don't know about this device in addition to the price.
While Sony showed off the NGP's diminutive new storage medium, a piece of plastic about the size of an SD flash card, the company didn't talk much about it.
It did say the card could store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card.
But not how you will buy games.
Retailer GameStop was essentially cut out of the game-selling process with the release of Sony's last portable, the PSPGo.
That device had you buy games directly from Sony and download them.
No store was needed.
The retailer wasn't pleased.
This time around, it seems as if Sony is still in talks with retailers about how its many games will be sold.
"You will be able to download NGP games or other content from the PlayStation Store to a storage media via the Internet, or buy the new game medium at retailers," Tretton said.
"We will announce further details."
GameStop told me last week they were under a non-disclosure agreement with Sony on the subject, something that hints at more news to come.
Sony hasn't said whether the device will have a hard drive or whether owners will be able to save games to this new card. This final piece of the puzzle, along with the price, could be a significant deal maker or deal breaker for the company.
With the game industry's big E3 show set to kick off this northern hemisphere summer, Sony has one more chance to wow gamers with an affordable price and an innovative approach to game sales, and that's what I hope Sony is planning to do.
It certainly sounds like it is.
- Kokatu.com
