Ben-DutkaThe NGP continues to be the talk of the town, and now that it has been fully unveiled, the analysts are weighing in.
We've already spoken to EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich about Sony's new portable but the firm has released an "At A Glance" summary for the interested gamer. After summarizing a few stats – 5" OLED touch screen, 4 core processor, 3G option, custom OS, etc. – we get a few new predictions: firstly, while it's expected to release towards the end of this year in Japan, EEDAR anticipates the NGP won't hit North America and Europe until March 2012. They reiterate their $299 – $349 price prediction, with a new software estimate of $39.99 – $49.99. They also say the Next Generation Portable should "easily beat PSP sales in North America." Here are a few more thoughts from the analysts:
Unsurprisingly, they say GameStop will be the biggest NA retailer for the NGP, and as for obstacles Sony most overcome: declining retail support, piracy, and unique content. Lastly, EEDAR does have some advice for publishers and we wholeheartedly agree- don't play catch up; support the NGP early. In the past, that wait-and-see philosophy just hasn't panned out.
SE's experience with the PS3 should prove that wait and see doesn't work.
Wait and see = fans now hate you
I don't see the reason to wait for some devs. It has ALL the functions that a portable gaming device needs.
Thank God SEGA isn't a wait and see dev.
It still floors me when people say that PSP was a failed system. Supposed professionals even say this. Sure it had some hard times due to stuff like this, but it was a profitable system for many. I hope the NGP finds its way into both gamer's hands and gadget nut hands. I still think there is a huge part of the market to grab with non-traditional games and I hope the tech makes devs want to experiment.
The dual stick control scheme should allow for much better gaming too. I mean even some PS1 games had trouble on PSP because of that, but the NGP doesn't seem to have such barriers and with today's ridiculously busy on the go society I think the market is primed for portables, just look at how popular they are in Japan. All it needs is that early support. And stupid stuff like youtube and facebook and twitter… for some reason.
nice avatar dude… does really raise an important question, WHO IS WORLD?
It's a little trickery off of a poster found in Bioshock 🙂
Funny thing is an "atlas" still has lots to do with the world.
Last edited by Teddie9 on 2/3/2011 7:31:32 PM
I sincerely hope that down the line, Sony won't remove the "Custom OS" option, for security reasons. This, whether directly or indirectly, will influence people to hack it and cause a new wave for piracy, and Sony wouldn't want that…
Oh.
Incidentally, you'll find it a lot easier if you don't believe the hype emanating from the 'scene' or the 'community'.
Last edited by TheHighlander on 2/3/2011 1:49:17 PM
Yes, because no one was trying to hack the PS3 before the removal of "Other OS". That would be crazy…
I seen a list of publishers the other day and its a very long list. NGP isn't a day one for me until I see game that I gotta have. Im hoping BBS Volume 2 is a ngp title. Im sure we'll see more at E3 and TGS.
I think the rear tracking pad is awesome idea. I have not tried it first hand so i'm still having second thoughts about it, but if it works, it's ingenious for hardcore gaming.
One MAJOR complaints on some hardcore touchscreen games on ipods is the "fat finger" issues, where my finger would block off the screen when i play some hardcore games. Only time will tell how the rear screen works.
N00b question; Do Nintendo have a patent on hinges? Their design makes much more sense in terms of screen protection. I'm sure there are protective cases for the PSP but a lid is easier to close.
Now we're getting brand new OLED greatness which will be rolling around in spare change and peanuts in people's pockets. Well that's what I keep in mine.
Probably too much added thickness with all that's packed in there.
Well they should drop the flux capacitor in favour of a simple peanut deflector.
dude just remove the peanuts from your pocket…
good.
now zip up your pants, this is a family friendly website!
lol Not THOSE peanuts! Different pocket…
I'd prefer the added thickness of a built-in lid to that of a third-party case that has to cover the entire surface area of the system.
My PSP-1000 in its Logitech (?) case is at least twice as bulky as it is without it.
Yeah, I was always paranoid about scratching my PSP screen. And I always wash my hands before handling my handhelds or controllers. A touch of the OCD? Perhaps…
Wild, I had missed the fact that it has the ability to have a custom OS somewhere in the shuffle. This makes it a no brainer for me, I will definitely be pre-ordering one of these bad boys.
Amazon, here I come.
I think that the quote in the article is confusing things. NGP doesn't feature an 'otherOS' style ability to run a custom OS of your own choosing.
When they say custom OS, they are meaning that it's not running a version of Android or Linux. I found this quote; “Not Android, but Different from the PSP — the [NGP's] OS has a modern framework akin to a PC.â€
In other words, the OS is a custom OS written especially for NGP, not something that's skinned or based on something else.
Interesting. Thanks for the info Highlander. Still going to be picking one of these bad boys up though.
Oh BTW off topic. I was reading somewhere that handheld sales were only 3-4 games sold per PSP. It's around the same for DS sales. I doubt NGP can or should be sold at a $50 lost for the sake of Sony.
I have no doubt the NGP hardware will sell, but even the DS selling over 100 million had low attach rate. Sony's profit comes down to how well their anti-piracy is and how much each NGP cost to manufacture.
I have like 40 PSP games and about 60 DS games. I am insane.
Last edited by Rings0fUranus on 2/6/2011 2:13:09 PM
I'm hoping its about £180 ($299) because that would be reasonable considering how mcuh we're getting but two expensive and it will be too much.
kinda inacessible in my opinion if its to expensive and inaccessability could damage sales so… ya know…
The price in the UK will depend on the Euro price. And that price will be set based on the $/yen, the $/Euro, and Euro/yen rates to make sure that the base price is somewhat harmonized. Of course the price in the UK and much of Europe will include a significant VAT amount, in the US, the average sales tax where I am is just under 10%, and prices are always quoted before tax.
I made the same point to Zorigo last week.
20% (right?) included VAT vs. add-on sales tax makes the relative prices (UK vs. NA) seem more lopsided than they actually are.
If I remember correctly, the original PSP was a spring-time release in North America too.
The dual analog sticks is brilliant. Now they can finally have some decent fps on there. I just hope that OLED is clear enough to see who you're sniping.
This seems like a silly thing for analysts to say. "If devs want to make money on games on the NGP, they need to start working on it now."
Yeah, okay, thanks.
Not a jab at the article, mind you! Just laughing at the obvious "duh" moment on Divnich's part.
dunno if thats such a great idea.
we still dont know how well this is going to take off, thats totally dependent on the price.
nothing worse then investing millions on making a game for a new device, than have the device sell 2 units!
i cant see many people leaping out of the gate and buying this unless its really cheap, which is not going to happen.
problem is we really dont need this, phones and PSPs and DSs are doing just a fine job, so do we really need this?
thats what allot of people are going to be asking themselves, and while the price will help answer that, its still going to be a hard decision especially in these financial struggling times.
No, there is an interesting point here. The only handheld gaming platform for non-casual games will be sony's NGP. If a maker of games wants to sell anything other than enhanced cellphone games or shovel ware, they better support NGP.
Of course it becomes a self-fulfilling thing at that point because the better the publisher/developer support, the better the platform will sell and the greater the return publishers will see.
In gaming, there really is something to the theory of "if you build it, they will come".
they will come, but will enough come to make it worthwhile?
im not so sure, i can see most people looking at this and saying do i really need to drop 400+ bucks on it?
i just dont think theres enough incentive there, yea the games are going to look better, there going to have trophies and theres apparently going to be allot of ps3 compat features too.
but is that enough to suck people into dropping that amount of cash for it?