Sony NGP Revealed, The PSP2 Is Here

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The PSP 2 is real, and it’s coming. At a press conference today in Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment announced the successor to the PSP handheld, dubbed “NGP” (Next Generation Portable). The small and powerful handheld features a huge 5-inch OLED touchscreen as well as a whopping quad-core ARM processor! This isn’t your next handheld, kids, it’s the one after that.

In addition to the touchscreen, for controls, it’s got the trusty PlayStation keys (X, Circle, Triangle and Square) in addition to two analog sticks (not the nubs on the PSP), as well as a D-Pad. It also has the rear-mounted touchpad, as was rumored by a few sites. As for specs, it’s quite the beast. In addition to the 5-inch OLED screen and the quad-core processor, it’s packing a 3G connection, GPS, WiFi, the same motion-tech that’s found in PlayStation Move and both front-facing and regular cameras. Nice!

No UMD, but games will come on a new sort of flash memory stick. It’s not an SD card or a Memory Stick, but very similar. In addition, it’ll also be able to play PSP games and will have digital games, too. The NGP is ditching the XMB UI in favor of something new called “LiveArea”. A little odd Sony would ditch XMB, considering that they’ve started adding it to HDTVs, Blu-Ray players and even digital cameras. In addition, it’s also got full PlayStation Network support and connectivity.

This is one powerful handheld. Early reports were that it was “as powerful as the PS3″ and Sony brought out Hideo Kojima, who showed Metal Gear Solid 4 running on the NGP with the same art assets from the PS3 version. MGS4 is no slouch, graphically, and Kojima said the game ran at 20 frames per second. A bit laggy, but those in attendance said it looked playable. Best of all – Sony said that the NGP is coming this holiday season. Oh boy, just when you thought the iPhone had eaten the lunch of the portable gaming handhelds, we’ll see the NGP and 3DS face off in Holiday 2011 for your gaming dollars.

Speaking of dollars, pricing wasn’t announced. You’ve got to imagine that this thing will be expensive in US dollars, especially with the strong yen. Most smartphones are $600 without a contract and this thing is easily more machine than most cell phones. I think you’ve got to expect a price between $300 and $400.

The hardware specs geek in me is impressed with the specs on the NGP (as you can probably tell). Will it do well? Can it compete with the 3DS and iPhone? I don’t know, but it’s definitely a handheld Ferrari, and will give those two a run for their money.