Lots of info regarding Sony’s “Next Generation Portable” has all of a sudden come to the forefront. So here’s everything that’s known up till now (and my two cents, of course).
For starters the new name will be PlayStation Vita. Yeah… I know. It was found out via various sources that know how to snoop around, with the most recent being folks that decided to dissect the source code for Sony’s upcoming E3 teaser page. Not that PSP2 rolled off the tongue, but something that sounds an awful like a failed operating system from Microsoft is perhaps not the best choice.
Onto the system itself, various hands on reports have reminded us that this sucker is huge. Destructoid recently had some hands on time with the sucker and made sure to emphasize this fact: “You’re going to hear Sony say it many times: the NGP features a gigantic, five-inch OLED screen. Hearing that or reading it might not convey what that means, but it’s probably bigger than you’re thinking. If you have an iPhone in front of you for comparison, that screen is 3.5 inches; the extra 1.5 inches makes a startling difference.”
The reporter goes one to rave about the analogue sticks, talks about all the possibilities the front and back touch-screens open up, as well as how awesome PSP games look on it…. Sorry, but that part makes me laugh. Given how bad Sony has been with hooking up PSP Go with content, as well as how there’s hardly been any PSone releases for the PS3, can’t wait for how frustrating the Vita’s legacy software will be. Then again, forget old news (its not like there’s a TON of amazing PSP software to being with), what about the new news?
First off you have the portable rendition of Uncharted…
… Still not into an adventure starring Drake that’s not manned by Naughty Dog, though I’m mostly worries about the weird mishmash of traditional button and touchscreen inputs, ESPECIALLY front and back. But hey, we need experiments like these to get the kinks out. Next is Wipeout 2048…
… Again, name me a person that likes tilt controls in any iPhone racer. It sucks. But thank God for traditional controls. Also, game looks AMAZING, and cross-play with Wipeout HD on the PS3 sounds even sweeter. And finally is an overall look at Sony’s latest foray into augmented reality, culminating with the Vita (for just that, simply skip forward to the 3:35 mark)…
… Sounds good; eliminating the need for AR cards in particular is good, if only because it’s so cumbersome. Unfortunately, the jury is still out if the experiences provided will be engaging enough. As Nintendo demonstrated with the 3DS, just having technology on your side is not enough; they were able to create compelling alternative reality experiences when no one else could… such as those making iPhone games, who had access to similar technology for literally years in advance, yet did nothing with it.
Though my biggest fear is if the system itself will be able to hang in the long run, especially after recent reports from various outlets, such as 1UP, that the system specs have been downgraded. Damn. Hearing that the ram has been halved is not good news (not matter how fast your processor, you NEED ram for it do anything), nor how the 16 gigs of internal memory have been removed entirely. But Sony has a habit of taking promising tech and gimping it immediately afterwards. See: the emotion engine getting removed from PS3s for no good reason other than to confuse and frustrate its supporters.