Earlier today, the Internet practically exploded with news surrounding the official announcement of the PSP’s successor, codenamed “NGP”. Amongst the truckload of news, which we’re covering here, was a fact-sheet which let on just how much horsepower, voodoo and unicorn horns Sony have managed to cram into their new handheld.
As you can see from the below list, if a futurologist has so much as dreamt about a tech, Sony have shoehorned it into its mobile form-factor with the only thing that appears to be missing is a cookie-making hoverboard.
- CPU: ARM® CortexTM-A9 core (4 core)
- GPU:SGX543MP4+
- External Dimensions: Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth)
- Screen: 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED – Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
- Rear touch pad: Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
- Cameras: Front camera, Rear camera
- Sound: Built-in stereo speakers, built-in microphone
- Sensors: Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), three-axis electronic compass
- Location: Built-in GPS, Wi-Fi location service support
- Keys / Switches: PS button, Power button, Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left), Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square), Shoulder buttons (Right/Left), Right stick, Left stick, START button, SELECT button, Volume buttons (+/-)
- Wireless communications: Mobile network connectivity (3G), IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1×1)(Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode), Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR ?A2DP/AVRCP/HSP
These days, smart phones which feature touch screens, multi-core processors, front and rear cameras, motion sensors, GPS and of course mobile 3G and WiFi chip-sets cost anything up to £600. They are generally only affordable thanks to the heavy subsidies offered by mobile phone operators trying to hook you into a long term monthly contract. So, just how much could the NGP cost?
Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony’s Andrew House said
I can’t put a ballpark on it in terms of figures, but what I would say is that we will shoot for an affordable price that’s appropriate for the handheld gaming space. Ideally we would want to have our hardware be profitable, in addition to our software, we’ve experienced both sides and we know which one we like to be on.
However, a source told Eurogamer that “Sony will make a loss on each unit”, which isn’t hard to believe if Sony want the above spec at an affordable price point. With no official price announcement all talk is little more than educated guess work but at a spec that, in this writer’s opinion looks like it could be closer to £400 than the psychological £200 barrier, it looks like Sony themselves may need to dig deep so users can get their hands on the Next Generation Portable gaming goodness.
ratkiller75
Sounds good and powerful but I don’t believe that affordable is actually going to happen. I personally will stay loyal to the PSP as I have one and won’t have to fork out a fortune for it.
Jaffa-the-Cake
If its anything above £250 i’ll hold off for a price cut. No way am i paying more for a handheld than did for my PS3, no matter how much they claim it’s got the same horsepower. With the quoted price “appropriate for the handheld gaming space” I don’t expect it to be anywhere near £300, seeing as the only handheld gaming devices that go above and beyond that are high end android devices and iPhones, even iPod touches are half that price and all they can’t do is make calls.
PoorPaddy89
Depends on the size of its storage – my 32gb iPod Touch was £230. 64gb is nearly £300.
X_Yoshy_X
For That much tec im Guessing £350-£450 RRP and i will pay that much! i think this is a Day 1 buy for me!
tonyyeb
The licensing model pioneered by Nintendo with the NES has allowed console manufacturers to sell at a loss for years. This too will be the case in my opinion. I also think that compared to the PSP there are quite a few things going for the NGP. No proprietary UMD drive, lots of existing tech that is already mass produced for the huge mobile market such as OLED touch screens, wifi/3g/gps chipsets, gyro et al. from the PlayStation Move, design of case very similar to the outgoing PSP… I don’t see £400 here.
BadBoyBoogie
Some good points there about using components already mass produced, so I’m hoping for a price of around £250.
halbpro
It’s similar spec to a phone. Off contract those cost £400+
gideon1451
One day, I’ll own one. At whatever cost.
PoorPaddy89
Day one, I’ll own one. At whatever cost.
ericzap
-_- I see what you did there.
kjkg
What I’m more interested in is if they are going to actually call it the NGP or PSP2. My hopes and money is on PSP2.
stueeeee
It wouldn’t make sense for them to not call it psp2. The name is familiar and anything else will be seen as distancing from the original psp. And be seen by the general public as a new Sony handheld. PSP2 will generate much more hype. I think they have already said that NGP is a code name, thank god.
stingraz
I’m guessing it will cost around the £300 Mark. In my opinion that is a fair price for a portable gaming device that offers so much.
Kevling
Interview over on Gamesindustry.biz says the 3G will be a separate model, and the data charges would be paid by the user… So that side of things definitely *won’t* be subsidised.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-01-27-sony-not-all-ngp-models-will-ship-with-3g
tonyyeb
Good as I would rather tether it to my mobile while I’m away from wifi.
Thechunkymunky
I half expected them to do that. And i’m glad they have.
Means i’ll pick up the (hopefully) slightly cheaper WiFi only model :)
BadBoyBoogie
That’s good to hear. I can’t see myself using 3G much, if ever, so I’ll be getting the WiFi only version, and save myself a few quid. ;)
jayjay119
It’s also not hard to believe that sony will make a loss on each console sold if you consider that that was the case with the PS3 in the early days. Sony must be the only company I know happy to make a loss for at least a short period of time, but I guess this attitide says a lot for the quality… or at least the idea of quality they have in their products. I bought my PS3 60GB on launch day and never regretted it. Yet I bought two 360s and regretted both!
Juelz345
Most consoles (excluding Nintendo current systems) make a loss for the first couple years, including the 360’s that regretted buying. Hence the “high” price points for software. And I’m pretty sure Sony aren’t happy to make the loss.
Awayze
Launch day, eh?
YLOD will hit you soon dude!
jayjay119
Doubt it considering I don’t have it anymore. What I meant was I don’t doubt that other consoles make a loss for a while, but Sony seemt to be the only ones who seem expect it and not try to reduce it.
And the 360’s that I regretted buying may have sold at a los, but they were shoddy quality, so I’d hate to see how much MS would have lost out on had they built them properly. Constant disktray malfunctions and two RRODs does not a good ivestment make.
beeje13
Not every launch 60GB will get the YLOD.
BG123
Yes they will. It’s a design fault, not a random thing. Any 60GB will get YLOD if it’s used regularly.
GTRsannin
Well good thing they announced it this early in the year i can start saving money so i have enough when it is released no matter what it costs
teflon
Sony could sell this for $250 and break even on parts.
Look at the iPhone 4 for competitive pricing, and at launch iSuppli estimated the parts cost to be roughly $180 for the 16GB model. As there, the PSP2’s most expensive component will definitely be the screen. OLED is still rather pricey, and at 5″, it’ll be pretty costly. iPhone 4’s Retina display was $30, so I’d gamble on maybe $40 for the OLED on the PSP2.
The CPU/GPU combined SoC will also cost a fair bit, but prices will drop between now and launch, and moving to multiple cores is pretty cost effective. If the A4 chip cost Apple $10, then the PSP2’s chip won’t cost more than $40.
After that, prices are very low, a few dollars here, a few there. If there’s little to no internal flash (though I’d hope there is at least 8GB), that’s a big chunk of the cost that can go to pay for the screen and processor. This aspect can always be increased when the inevitable hardware revision comes along.
So add it all together, and if the iPhone 4 cost Apple $180 (and they’ll hit that target again for the iPhone 5), then I’d say that the PSP2 will cost no more than $250 in parts, more likely closer to $200, I think.
Sony, then, could cut it very deep and exactly match the $250 price tag of the 3DS (which at that price is almost assuredly being sold at a profit). They obviously get a big chunk of each game sold, and in a years time will then be making a decent enough profit on the hardware, as long as it’s priced competitively and sells.
Grey_Ghost13
Make sense and hopefully it works out like that, if they can at least match the 3DS they are onto a winner! This trounces the 3DS and everything else out there by far. It’s just the price that will be the sticking point!
jayjay119
Thing is though, have sony learnt from their past mistakes with the PS3? It was needlessly expensive just to fit a lot of unneeded tech in there which was inevitably removed for the slim redesign. the gyroscope, sixaxis control and rear track pad all sound great on paper and look good now, but thing 2 years down the line, will they actually be put to use or just something, like the 6axis controller, that will be disregarded early on, then removed? If that’s the case, sony would be better to cut them now and put out the machine at a lower price, which as long as they keep the graphics juiced up like they are now, would entise many more people.
teflon
The Gyroscope costs a whopping $3. The Touch pad on the back will be equally cheap.
Almost everything on off here is very cheap because they’re all fairly standard parts in a Smart Phone. The CPU and GPU are both quad core, which is double what we expect to be standard in smart phones by the middle of this year, so that works out to be almost precisely double cost. The Screen is only more expensive because it’s 2″ bigger than most smart phones, but conversely it’s got roughly the same dot pitch, so it’s just taking a bigger slice of the massive sheets they produce.
Gyroscope, 3G, WiFi etc. etc. all cost a couple of dollars. If anything, the most expensive parts after the SoC and screen will be the custom parts, the two analogue sticks, the face buttons, the shoulder triggers, the non-standard flash card slots.
By comparison, if you look at the PS3 at launch it had more overly expensive parts in it. by comparison the PSP2 is more a souped up smart phone. There’s no custom designed parts for it (the rear touch pad, buttons and analogue sticks the exceptions), it’s all surprisingly off the shelf.
squashme
I think the question is have learned from the mistake of the PSPGO my answer would be NO
squashme
the sixaxis discontinued ? really ? OMG what do you use to play games then ? oh yea a sixaxis dualshock controller so they havent been discontinued at all
squashme
OLED is hardly that pricey anymore they cost around £10 for a screen that size sure enough they maybe thinner than paper and have a shelf life of around 75% of LCD 7 years ago when they were just 1inch 128×128 pixel screens in mobiles yea they cost alot but no more AMOLED/SuperAMOLED on the other hand is a different matter the only reason why they went with the cheaper OLED is because Samsung make over 80% of the worlds OLED/AMOLED/SuperAMOLED screens and Samsung have said theyre struggling to keep with the demand with SuperAMOLED and a simmlier thing AMOLED the CUP is a Hummingbird ive got the A8 in my phone there made by Samsung depending on what their contrct with Sammy is Sammy may get a cut from each handset sold considerin a bunch of thier tech in the PSP2 but I would say the PSP2 cost Sony less than the craphone 4
seedaripper1973
..And now, exhale…
cc_star
AMOLED or SuperAMOLED could be in the NGP2000 the following year
teflon
the screen will still be the most expensive, or nearly the most expensive single component in the device.
squashme
i agree there cc star when Sammy get their fctory up n runnin they could put that on it although possibly i would think it would the SuperAMOLED Plus by then
squashme
seedaripper1973 how what exactly ? explain ?
how will the screen be the most expensive part its just OLED its not even used in mobile phone anymore most use AMOLED. OLED is extinct cost no more than a tenner now for a screen that size the CPU will be the most expensive part or the GPU.
what bothers me is the Bluetooth will we be able to do file transfers or not i thought that was 1 of the PSPGO’s biggest let downs havin bluetooth but havin no use for it so it was a wasted component will it be the same for the PSP2 ?
Ross
hopefuly it will be around £200-£300
cam the man
Hopefully closer to the £200 mark.