Sony Unveiled Successor to PlayStation Portable

Recently, Sony revealed the first details on a long-rumored successor to their struggling PlayStation Portable platform.

An online news portal - content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters, writes about it, “The next generation portable, code-named NGP, is scheduled to hit stores later this year.

Revealed during an event in Japan early Thursday, the NGP will feature a 5-inch OLED touchscreen, front- and rear-facing cameras, gyroscope and accelerometer, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and built-in GPS.

The device includes two thumbsticks, addressing a big complaint against the PlayStation Portable.

NGP will also introduce a new software format for games. Each title will be released on a small card using flash memory, and allow users to store downloadable content and their game saves on the card.

Further it adds, “Along with NGP, Sony also announced the PlayStation Suite, a PlayStation store of sorts that will deliver titles -- such as classics from the library of the original PlayStation -- to Android-based devices. The Suite requires Android users to have Android 2.3 operating system, code-named Gingerbread.

Sony did not offer details on what the device or games would cost.

The NGP enters a very competitive portable gaming market, with Nintendo's DS dominating the field and Apple's iPod Touch continuing to gain ground. Nintendo will release a 3-D capable DS in March.”

However, Sony had revealed features of NGP on its blog - blog.us.playstation.com. It had written, “Today in Tokyo, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. announced the next generation portable entertainment system (codename: NGP). NGP will make its debut at the end of the 2011, but here’s everything you need to know right now.”

You can read the features of NGP at the official blog of Play Station. Announcement about the launch of Sony PlayStation Portable had been made earlier.

Sony Portable PlayStation To Be Launched in Next Week

Today, www.bloomberg.com, an online news portal reported the plans of Sony to launch PlayStation Portable in next week.

The news portal writes, “Sony, the world’s second-largest maker of portable game players, will also outline a strategy to use its networked entertainment services to share games, movies and music among handheld products, TVs and other devices, said one person, who declined to be identified because the plan isn’t public.”

Further it writes, “With the updated portable player and the Sony Ericsson touch-screen smartphone to be shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tokyo-based company aims to gain market share in markets dominated by Nintendo Co. and Apple Inc., according to one of the people, whose company makes mobile-phone software and was briefed on the plans.”

The news portal quotes a statement of Patrick Seybold also, “Patrick Seybold, a Sony spokesman, declined to say whether the Jan. 27 briefing will include the announcement of a new portable product.

The company has had trouble gaining traction with the PSP, dubbed the “Walkman of the 21st Century” by former PlayStation head Ken Kutaragi. Introduced in late 2004, the PSP has failed to catch up to the popularity of Nintendo’s products, selling 18.5 million units in the U.S. to the Nintendo DS family’s 47.4 million, according to researcher NPD Group.”

In the review the news portal writes, “Sony rose 0.3 percent to 2,961 yen as of 12:47 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, same as the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. Nintendo added 0.2 percent in Osaka.

The original PlayStation Portable required retailers to stock, and consumers to buy, a proprietary storage format called the universal media disc. With the PSP Go, released in 2009, Sony did away with the disc drive by offering only wireless downloads of games. We had heard about Sony Ericsson PlayStation phone also recently.