On January 27, at an event in Tokyo, Sony showed the first official glimpse of the successor to its popular handheld gaming console - the PlayStation Portable.
Breaking the trend of appending a higher version number to an existing product name, Sony decided to call it the NGP (or Next Generation Portable), instead of the PSP2.
While the original PSP was a good console on the move, it couldn't do anything else as efficaciously as it did in gaming. Also, Apple opened the gates to a completely touch and motion based method of playing games with its iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad).
The NGP tries to match up to this ability by including a touch-screen, along with motion sensing internals like an accelerometer and gyroscope. But it's not entirely going the touch-way, as the typical gaming buttons and even new analog sticks are made to co-exist with touch input methods.
The hardware sounds impressive and we have faith that Sony will make the NGP a great gaming platform. But bringing in better hardware also brings in higher expectations, other than running games. We have five basic questions about the device's not-so-proudly-talked-about aspects:
How will one input text?
Text input on the PSP was horrible. The only way you could do it was by navigating a cursor through the on-screen keyboard. Now that we've got a 5-inch touchscreen at our disposal with the NGP, we can only hope that things will improve. But note that the NGP has a horizontal width of 182mm. To put things into perspective, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab measures closely at 190mm, while the 5-inch screened Dell Streak is 153mm wide. If you look at the NGP, there is a considerable amount of space occupied by the analog sticks and other control buttons on either side of the screen.
We're wondering whether we'll have to stretch our thumbs to the point of exertion to reach the on-screen QWERTY keys, if there are any. If it was up to us, we'd like it if it had a split-QWERTY design seen on SwiftKey for Tablets, a third party keyboard replacement for Android. This way the alphabet keys that one would tend to use the most should be within the comfortable reach of your thumbs.
Breaking the trend of appending a higher version number to an existing product name, Sony decided to call it the NGP (or Next Generation Portable), instead of the PSP2.
While the original PSP was a good console on the move, it couldn't do anything else as efficaciously as it did in gaming. Also, Apple opened the gates to a completely touch and motion based method of playing games with its iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad).
The NGP tries to match up to this ability by including a touch-screen, along with motion sensing internals like an accelerometer and gyroscope. But it's not entirely going the touch-way, as the typical gaming buttons and even new analog sticks are made to co-exist with touch input methods.
The hardware sounds impressive and we have faith that Sony will make the NGP a great gaming platform. But bringing in better hardware also brings in higher expectations, other than running games. We have five basic questions about the device's not-so-proudly-talked-about aspects:
How will one input text?
Text input on the PSP was horrible. The only way you could do it was by navigating a cursor through the on-screen keyboard. Now that we've got a 5-inch touchscreen at our disposal with the NGP, we can only hope that things will improve. But note that the NGP has a horizontal width of 182mm. To put things into perspective, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab measures closely at 190mm, while the 5-inch screened Dell Streak is 153mm wide. If you look at the NGP, there is a considerable amount of space occupied by the analog sticks and other control buttons on either side of the screen.
We're wondering whether we'll have to stretch our thumbs to the point of exertion to reach the on-screen QWERTY keys, if there are any. If it was up to us, we'd like it if it had a split-QWERTY design seen on SwiftKey for Tablets, a third party keyboard replacement for Android. This way the alphabet keys that one would tend to use the most should be within the comfortable reach of your thumbs.
Or they could just implement the word-tracing Swype method.
Will the front camera do anything other than taking self-portraits?
The NGP will have two cameras; a back-facing one for taking snaps and presumably to aid augmented reality games and apps. The front-facing camera could be used for a bunch of tricks -- from taking automated portraits of your tensed face while playing a difficult combat in God of War, a la the Kinect. But the obvious use of the front-cam would be for video-conferencing, as the concept has been again brought into light with the success of Apple's FaceTime.
The original PSP had support for VOIP phone calls via a Skype app built specially for the device. Would it be too much to expect Skype Video call support from one NGP device to another, let alone other Skype users on computers and smartphones/tablets. Skype is a popularly used video-conferencing app, and the Wi-fi as well as 3G support on the NGP more than demands for this kind of integration.
What about Video Playback?
The PSP supported a rudimentary set of video formats, leading to many a video converter software that let you convert videos on your computer to be playable on the PSP. We couldn't really expect the PSP to churn out DivX videos back in the day with its 333 MHz processor. But now that the NGP is touted to have a quad-core processor and GPU, one can easily guesstimate that even 1080p video playback shouldn't be a problem.
The PSP supported a rudimentary set of video formats, leading to many a video converter software that let you convert videos on your computer to be playable on the PSP. We couldn't really expect the PSP to churn out DivX videos back in the day with its 333 MHz processor. But now that the NGP is touted to have a quad-core processor and GPU, one can easily guesstimate that even 1080p video playback shouldn't be a problem.
But even if it has the hardware grunt to churn HD, will it support popular video formats and containers of today like DivX, XviD or MKV? As a matter of fact, it will be shameful if in this day and age you have to convert your videos before they can be viewed on a portable device with this kind of power. Out-of-the-box support is crucial for the NGP, as it doesn't run an OS like Android where you just get an app that fulfills that task (RockPlayer for Android, for example), if your device doesn't, but is powerful enough to pull off the task. This brings us to our next question.
What about apps?
The success of Apple's iOS devices like the iPod Touch can be contributed to the excellent variety of apps available for the platform. The NGP's PlayStation Suite store is said to have non-gaming apps. But how well will developers adapt to the new platform is a wait and watch game.
Will we get Nimbuzz for our multi-protocol chatting needs, Opera as an alternative in case the default browser sucks, Facebook/Twitter for social networking or Google Maps for using the NGP as a navigator? Can I watch YouTube videos or view Flash-enabled websites? Or will the platform be ignored by them, just like Samsung's Bada smartphone OS?
Game distribution discrepancy?
The original PSP came with small proprietary discs called UMDs. The PSP Go gave up physical media altogether and games would only be directly downloaded and played on the device. It was told yesterday that the NGP, while giving up on the spinning UMDs will rather include proprietary game cards that looked not to different than your typical SD card. Now, there's no mention of how much internal memory will the NGP have (the PSP Go had 16GB internal memory plus a Memory Stick Micro expansion slot).
So, will the games sold on those proprietary game-cards also be available for direct download from the PlayStation Suite store?
Update: The NGP is definitely an exciting upgrade, and from the looks of it, is more a gaming machine than anything else. But with convergence devices like the iPod Touch that started out as a PMP, but now has evolved into an appreciable gaming/video capture/internet device, would it be too wrong to expect the above-mentioned things from Sony's next PlayStation Portable? While these things may not matter to people who want to buy the NGP for hardcore gaming, for casual electronic gadget users and convergence device lovers like me, these things are important and would definitely tempt us into favoring the NGP over something like an iPod Touch.
