More on the NGP

The Sony PSP 2 aka NGP is technically a game console but frankly a optimized gaming tablet, with specs that would put even the newest full fledged tablets to shame. At the Game Developers Conference 2011 it made a few more appearances and we now have a bit of video to look at to see what the thing can do.

First off it’s not as powerful as the PS3, basically because it would overheat andGoogle+Reader” target=”_blank”> run out of battery too quickly

if they ran the hardware at maximum. Theoretical CPU speeds of 2Ghz (quad core) on a mobile device is very nice, but there’s a limit to how fast that thing has to be.It was said that developers who wants to port games from the PS3 to the NGP should basially make things less blingy by simplifying models, textures and shaders. This means we might see the same games, just lower (graphical) quality version of them.

Gaming these days is more about innovative control schemes and fun gameplay anyways, which is why Nintendo still isn’t bankrupt despite having the only non-HD current generation game console and a recently released handheld game console that might have 3D, but is about as technically impressive as a pocket calculator. That’s why the NGP has everything from a touchscreen and back side touch panel to a camera and GPS. Some gameplay videos from Engadget shows off these features in action, and they are indeed being used a lot in the game they demoed, anyways (Uncharted). The gamepad is being used for control, touchscreen for climbing obstacles, back touch panel for climbing ropes, gyroscope for controlling an in-game camera and so on. They also have some videos showing the NGPs augmented reality capabilities, including an Ape Escape monkey dancing on a game cover and a dinosaur roaming the aisles of the conference room.

Some information was also released on the capacity of the game cartridges, which is either 2 or 4GB. In comparison, PSP games are less than 1.8GB (normally a LOT less). It doesn’t say too much though as the size of a game depends very much on how everything is done, and not to mention how much voice acting and video clips there are in the game. With the current cost of flash memory though and Internet speeds still making 2-4GB a hassle to download for most, this does explain why we still have cartridges.

A couple of more videos are available on Engadget’s site