Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Sony's next big thing

Last week Sony finally presented the Playstation Portable 2, better known as the NGP for Next Generation Portable.

Last week Sony finally presented the Playstation Portable 2, better known as the NGP for Next Generation Portable.

Coming just weeks after Nintendo's presentation of the 3DS it attracted a lot of attention - what was Nintendo's biggest competitor in the portable gaming market going to look like? And how could it possibly compete with glasses-free 3D?

History might seem to be against the NGP, but the Sony PSP did better than everyone thinks. They sold roughly 65 million of their handheld units, which is massive by any measure - unless it's a direct comparison with the 145 million Nintendo DS systems out in the wild.

There's no mistaking that both systems are moving on to the next generation. The 3DS will have a 3D display and a sharper resolution screen capable of watching 3D movies. It will have a front-facing camera and stereo cameras on the back capable of taking 3D pictures and video. It has an analog joystick. It has a massive library of 3D launch titles. It has a sale price of $250.

But the Sony NGP is no slouch. While there's no 3D, it is an extremely powerful little machine with a five-inch OLED touch screen, dual analog joysticks, a rear multi-touch touchpad, built-in stereo speakers and microphone (the earlier PSP models allowed for Skype, long before any phones carried the app), built-in GPS, a six-axis motion sensing system, front and rear cameras, 3G plus wireless plus bluetooth, a fast CPU and a dedicated graphics card. It's a powerhouse by any measure, and for hardcore gamers it has almost twice as many inputs as the 3DS.

Solving the UMD and media issue, Sony announced that you could download games through the Playstation network or purchase titles on flash cards. Presumably movies will also be available for purchase on flash as well -Sony has a huge library after all.

Sony also has a huge library of games, including many PS One and PS2 titles that will be made available now that the machine can handle the graphics. It's entirely possible that the NGP will be able to play PS3 games as well, it's that good.

The talk in the tech world is that phones are taking over as the top portable gaming devices, and there's some truth in that - when it comes to certain types of games. But touch screens and tilt sensors have their limits, and real gamers like the control that comes with a joystick and buttons (or, in the case of the NGP, dual joysticks that are a must have for first person shooters and sports games).

And Sony has the phone market covered there as well, announcing a new line of Xperia phones running the latest version of Android Froyo. It's not as powerful as the NGP when it comes to the hardware, but a solid control pad with touch sensitive controllers slides out and Sony will make a large number of PS One games available on the Android store.

The market has already decided that younger kids will want the 3DS and teens the NGP, while adults will stick with their phones. That's probably the truth, although I think the NGP has greater ability to crossover into multiple markets.

The one thing it's missing is a stylus that lets you write on the screen - something that makes the 3DS a little more productive - but maybe that will be announced closer to launch. A battery that lasts longer than four hours would also come in handy.

No price or release date yet, but I'm guessing it will rival the 3DS at around $250 - maybe $300 with a couple of launch titles - and will be out in around August to get the back-to-school crowd.

 

Internet metering battle heats up

Canadians are not happy with the state of broadband in Canada, and the recent metering of internet usage by the internet service providers (ISPs). Politicians have started to notice at all levels of government, and last week Vancouver city council sent a letter to the federal government asking them to ban Internet metering.

In a sense, internet metering has always been around although the ISPs never actually enforced the limits. But after Bell won a ruling from the CRTC that allows them to cap secondary suppliers that purchase bandwith from Bell, Canadians are starting to see bills in the mail. The thing is, all of the big ISPs buy bandwith from each other in different markets, including within Whistler, so when one company starts to meter then they all follow suit.

My opinions on the matter have not changed. I'm okay with metering as long as it's transparent - you pay for what you use rather than paying a certain rate for unlimited, then paying a huge premium when you go over an arbitrary limit. They should also bulk price the internet, and exempt services like Netflix where they're profiting on both ends - e.g. Netflix pays extra to upload, customers pay extra to download.

The current metering system makes no sense. Imagine if we bought gas for our cars the same way we're required to purchase broadband - they would only sell you gas in 30-litre increments, and if you had a 55-litre gas tank you'd be forced to buy two measures of gas, and let the other five litres leak onto the ground.

For more on the issue, and to make your voice heard, visit www.openmedia.ca.