I’ve steered clear so far of any news about the PSP2 or the NGP as Sony call it (Next Generation Portable) until there was some solid info on the units themselves and when a “reliable” release date was issued, well here it is. Lets face it the PSP could’ve been the cat’s pyjamas but fell due the overwhelming popularity of the Nintendo DS with its strong games catalogue, innovative controls and general niceness that only Nintendo could bring. Despite it’s abilities it just couldn’t nail that “boys toy” market. Home consoles were still the be all and end all and portable gaming just weren’t in if you were between 16 and 40 (therefore not wanting to play kids games or Brain Training). The PSP was promising though. It did plenty and had it’s own format (UMD) but Sony ditched that for the PSPGo which sadly did even worse than the PSP with UMD capabilities. Now mobile gaming is back at an all time high with the mobile phone technology getting exponentially better that the games on them are increasing in ability so how can Sony deliver with a new portable games console especially when its trying to nail the mobile phone games market with its own Playstation branded mobile phone. Hopefully with the NGP is how. Certainly on paper its got all the potential to be great but that’ll depend on how Sony push it, Click on to see what its got.

Firstly a massive 960×544 touchscreen OLED screen. Ok its not HD but that certainly is a high resolution for its size and a lot better than the PSP(4x to be precise), plus with an OLED screen the colours will be more vivid the blacks deeper and they use a lot less battery power. Inside Sony have said the main processor and graphics processors are the most advanced available a quad-core Cortex-A9 processor and an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543MP+ graphics processor. This blows the Nintendo 3DS out of the water and if rumours are to be believed graphically will be as good if not far from a PS3.

Control wise you have the touchscreen to navigate menus an no doubt use in certain games and applications. There’s the traditional setup of D-Pad, classic Playstation buttons and for the first time, dual-analogue sticks. There’s also an exciting new feature on the reverse, a new touch-sensitive trackpad where gestures will add further control to your games and apps. Inside the NGP also has a 3D accelerometer, gyroscopic sensors and an electronic compass. This obviously has movement features not too distant from the Playstation Move controller adding another dimension to your gaming skills.

The NGP is also more sociable than it’s predecessor with dual cameras too. One rear-mounted and one front mounted. Not only could these be used in games but social networking applications as well as the obvious “taking pictures” functionality. Connectivity wise the NGP will pack Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS functions for multiplayer action, internet access, instant downloads, navigation and again social networking.

The media itself will come in a new hard format and be available from the Playstation store. The games will be on memory sticks of varying sizes for those wanting a hard copy but also games can still be purchased and downloaded from the Playstation Store as well as other media that the store offers. This then offers both options of the previous PSPs but also with both options being digital and not having the slowdown of reading off a UMD.

As said before everything looks promising and I hope Sony deliver this time. There’s no price details at all and I wouldn’t expect any till release which Sony has said will come in “the holidays”, basically that’s Christmas to us Brits but nobody knows if that’s worldwide or a regional release. Will have to wait and see.

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Sony NGP : PSP2 to you and me

KDL-22PX300, not the most catchy of models is Sony’s brand new 22” LCD TV in the Bravia range to come out in time for Christmas and to entice a bit of what is essentially “retro gaming”. Thought the PS2 was dead. You’re wrong. Sony has built one into this new TV so that fans of what was once the biggest console in the world can go back to playing their old games due to the fact the PS3(which had backwards compatability taken away from it) can’t play all those classic PS2 games(unless you download them from the PSNetwork).

The 22” TV capable of 720p output can play PS2 games in standard definition and also playback DVDs. It has multiple HDMI slots(four in total) comes with inbuilt FreeView tuner, 3 USB ports, Scart, VGA and component video inputs. The KDL-22PX300 also has an ethernet port too for all your internet based, on-demand content that seems to be the latest desire in the market for your TV.

Available now for just under £200, Sony TVs never disappoint and also with this baby you can plug in your old PS2 pads and enjoy some of those classics. Who needs Gran Turismo 5 or Call of Duty.

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PS2 isn’t dead!! It’s just built into your telly instead

As asked in the previous post, where next for Sony and its PSP. With the rise of the mobile phone and certainly how quickly the tech has developed within them to produce good games and applications is that the market Sony should take on with its PSP. Obviously Sony are a big player already in the mobile phone market since its acquisition of Ericsson mobile some years ago but now with the decline of Nokia and the rise of Apple and the iPhone, Sony has to come up with something else to compete. The main draw of the iPhone is obviously the AppStore and it’s ability to handle 3D graphics for gaming. Sony make good phones but also they make the PSP, put the two together and hopefully you could see a real iPhone rival. click on for more images and info

Usually when you see images of concept phones you can be left wondering how real they are. Well Engadget posted these fresh images of what appears to be the PSP Phone and due to the quality of the images you could say these look pretty genuine. As you can see yourself it has the a PSP GO like slide out screen/PSP style control pad and buttons. However it appears top have ditched the analogue sticks and has some sort of trackpad instead.

The operating system looks a lot like it’s Android based which certainly would be great. The rear of the phone has a camera with LED flash but also has a front facing camera, either for video calling or perhaps in game video chatting.

How real it all is, isn’t confirmed but it certainly looks genuine. Any more details we can get hold of in the future will be posted up for sure

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PSP Phone

The PSP had all the makings to be the best handheld ever but fell to the simpleness of the Nintendo DS. When Nintendo made it’s DS the DS Lite sales shot up around the world. Sony answered by making the slow selling PSP smaller and thinner to match, did it work? Well a little but certainly nowhere near the sales of the DS. The DS Lite then becomes the DSi. PSP’s answer is to become the PSP Go, a driveless, cartridgeless affair where downloads were your format of choice. Well that was a flop too. Thing is the PSP isn’t actually that bad a machine firstly I think they were a little pricey to start with, secondly although it had a lot of exclusive games none seemed to have the draw or originality of the DS’s New Super Mario Brothers, Brain Training or Professor Layton and the PSP always seemed to be a bit late with it’s answer.

What it all boils down to is would a new super powerful PSP make a difference. Can Sony get a bigger hold on the handheld market it’s struggled with so far. Nintendo hasn’t made any leaps and bounds with it’s tech, I mean the 3DS is obviously the next evolution but in terms of graphics and what it can actually do it’s still a bit old school and with Mobile Phone gaming improving in ability and sales could the market already be too saturated. Well all this aside rumours a rife with Sony’s next offering the PSP2.

Again opting for the power rather than the novelty factor like Nintendo’s products it is believed from several sources at the Tokyo Game Show that the PSP2 will have a whopping 1GB of RAM. The current PSPs only have 64MB so you can see the difference there but also an Xbox 360 only sports 512MB of RAM. Could it be more powerful than an Xbox?? Secondly it’s also believed to be sticking with the download to memory stick format of games so no more UMD.

The concept image of the PSP2 currently doing the rounds shows it to have dual analog sticks aswell as the standard D-Pad and Playstation controller buttons. The display is larger than current PSPs, more than likely going to be HD quality.

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PSP2 : What next for Sony

The console tug of war continues. Sony not that long ago released the slimmed down version of it’s PS3 and beefed up it’s hard drive capacity. Microsoft followed afterwards with it’s newer slimmer, quieter  bigger capacity hard drive console and soon to be arcade console. Sony not happy have now announced a new PS3 console to fight the new Xbox. But does anyone really care is the real question, what are consumers really gaining?

Japan already has the option of a white console, but here in Europe we’ve had to just make do with the plain black console to match our everyday cloud cover. Also on top of that Japan can also get a 160GB console and a 320GB console. Yes a whole 40GB and 70GB respectively more HDD space than what we can get. Well according to UK retail sources, the bigger HDD sizes are coming our way to replace the 120GB and 250GB currently doing the rounds. Whether we get a white console in this country though is anyone’s guess

No dates or prices yet but I imagine you’ll be looking just before Christmas for these to appear, probably at the prices the current 120GB(£249) and 250GB(£299) for the 160GB and 320GB respectively. Also expect any older stock to drop in price to sell through, much like the old Xbox Arcade and Elites have.

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PS3 Slim : 320GB White flavour??

Lucky for us we won’t all have to change our consoles hopefully for another few years at least, but we’re going to have to change the way we play them and actually do some work…… Thanks Nintendo Wii. With Playstation’s Move controller due soon and rumours of the Microsoft answer turned into reality the Kinect all we were waiting on was the date and price.

We had the new 250GB revamped Xbox and then the announcement of a 4GB console. With that announcement Microsoft told us the Kinect will cost £129.99 on its own or bundled with the new console for £249.99 (4GB console will cost £149.99 on its own) so when bundled you’re making a saving.

Then we were waiting for the date. Well it didn’t come from Microsoft straight away, but HMV and Play.com leaked that it was due for release on the 19th November, just in time for Christmas. A lot of talk between fan-boys though was the sheer price of the Kinect, which yes when compared to the Move controller, it’s more expensive. BUT I’ll defend it here in saying that if you want to play more than one player on the PS3 multiple Move controllers would have to be bought bumping the price up. Plus with the Kinect out before Christmas, you can probably guess if there’s still plenty in stock after Chrimbo, the price will no doubt drop.

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Microsoft Kinect 19th November

At E3 earlier this year Microsoft did say after they announced the new Xbox 250GB Slim that an Arcade version would be in the pipeline, now the new look Xbox 360 250GB has been out less than a week and it appears Bill Gates’ boys are again going to give us the scaled down version for those a little less in the pocket or that don’t require a whole 250GB of memory just to save games. The leak has come courtesy of Amazon(Germany) where a listing appeared for the scaled down Xbox.

There’s no pictures unfortunately but rumours suggest it won’t be any different from the new 250GB model in looks, keeping that black gloss finish (ie no white console) just it’ll be packing a 4GB internal memory, more than adequate for game saves, SD videos and photos.

The release date is scheduled for 20th August, just in time for Germany’s annual “Gamescom” convention. Early indications suggest it will cost around £125.

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Xbox 360 Arcade coming August

So the rumours were true and to be fair it’s about time. The Xbox 360 slim console has been made official and will be available soon (July 16th). Playstation 3 hasn’t been out nearly as long as the Microsoft console yet they’ve followed the trend of their previous consoles and released smaller, more compact versions of their consoles. So what have Microsoft finally decided to do it?

In my opinion it’s mainly down to the fact they need to drum up some extra interest in its new Kinect(formerly Natal) motion controller that also became official this week. It’s obviously smaller than the current 360 but has a slight design tweak to it too. It is also supposedly a lot quieter, which in all honesty isn’t that hard. The image also makes it look “glossy” in comparison to the older “matte” consoles. What else is good and finally Microsoft have added it in is N-standard WiFi. You no longer have to buy the £60 wireless bridge.

Again the release date is the 16th July and will retail at £199

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Xbox 360 SLIM

MSI have announced that its laptop ranges will be modernised with the latest Intel Core i5 and i7 chips and Windows 7 improving them by a minimum of 30%.

The Classic ranges will come in 3 models of CR420, CR620 and CR720 and will have LED screens starting from 14” to a massive 17.3”. These will be the general all round laptop you need for everyday work and web use and will pack the i5 chips within. No details on release for these or prices yet.

The Gaming range will come in 2 models. The GX640 and GX740 will contain the more powerful i7 chipsets and will also come bundled with ATi Mobility Radeon HD graphics chips supporting DirectX 11 gaming and will really make good use of the HD screens.  Release is looking at March 2010 and prices will start at £999

The gaming lappies will also benefit from what is called “Turbo Boost Technology” which will efficiently distribute system power and resources with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. They’re also packing Smart Cache and Graphics Media Accelerator HD to improve multimedia operation. The top end GX740 will also have 5 speakers for surround sound gaming but also a 7.1 optical out.

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MSI updating its Classic and Gaming Series Laptops

With the Android explosion on phones and tablets, its no surprise that the next thing the versatile OS would be doing branching out even further. In South Korea, this new hand-held has been flying round the developers but Odroid has now got the green light on a worldwide developer release for £210 with free shipping.

Obviously powered by Android the console packs a 3.5” 320×480 capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity alongside Bluetooth connnectivity. It also has a microSD slot for memory expansion but the best thing its packing is a HDMI out slot allowing you to output the video at 720p to your TV.

Click Here for a YouTube video showing it in action with its “tilting” control system. It just shows though that Android could in future be a real competitor for the mobile games market not only on phones but now in the handheld world. Maybe we can see a similar tech being used in future games console controllers.

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Android Hand Held Games Console : Odroid