UK developers got the chance to chat to Sony yesterday in London, and although the event was (we assume) NDA’d, one such studio has spoken to Eurogamer under the condition of anonymity.
It’s a “developer’s dream” said the unknown commentor. “Sony is finally doing the things developers have been crying out for for years.” Although some developers have had access to NGP development kits for over a year (which makes the lack of a proper leak all the more surprising) an upcoming kit (slightly delayed from Japan) will arrive soon with the final GPU in them.
Apparently key games were demonstrated, too including Uncharted, Little Deviants and WipEout, which, according to the same source, was the “PS3 engine running on NGP* with no changes to the art platform” – running at sixty frames per second. “It looks exactly the same as it does on PS3 – all the shader effects are in there”.
Sony’s submission process for NGP games now falls within that of the normal PS3 process, which means that developers only need await one confirmation to get their game ready to roll on both machines, leading further credence to the idea that the two machines, console and portable, are indeed very closely connection. Although the source did say that Sony don’t just want duplication onto both platforms – “there has to be a reason for the NGP title.”
It does indeed sound like a dev’s perfect machine. “Any shaders for PS3 stuff will just work,” said the leaker. “We won’t have to rewrite. What would have taken two-to-three months before looks like it could take just one-to-two weeks now. The architecture is obviously different, but it’s the same development environment.”
“Sony has made it completely developer-centric this time,” Eurogamer say, following by saying the dev kit is “really simple to plug in and use. It opens direct in Windows Explorer and you can see all systems on a network – so you could, for example, update the firmware of multiple NGPs at once.”
“A PS3 dev station can take three hours to set-up. This looks like it will take under 20 mins. It just makes everything easier – they’ve really thought about it this time”.
* the Eurogamer article says PS3 here, but we presume they meant NGP.
shields_t
At least they’re learning from previous mistakes, I mean presumably they had many complaints from devs about the difficulty of coding for the PS3.
Dreamy.
Jaffa-the-Cake
Yeah it should be much easier to code for because the way NGP is setup is more like a pc than a completely new system like the ps3.
cam the man
There’s no excuse for crappy ports from PS3 games.
So hopefully there will be a load of top games for it, unlike the PSP.
James
Even good quality ports of PS3 games I think will be detrimental to the PSP2.
Whilst I understand what Sony are trying to do with PSP2, replicate the console experience on the move, it didn’t work with PSP and I doubt it’s going to work now. Handhelds are something you pick up and play generally for much shorter periods of time relative to a console title, and this is where the DS and iOS games have got it right as they’re instantly playable and do not require hours of undivided attention like MGS4 would on PSP2.
Sony need to focus on utilising the touchscreen and touchpad on the back to make innovative games you won’t get anywhere else and push developers away from straight console ports.
affa
I never hear credit given to the PSP’s absolutely incredibly power-off system. If you quickly flip the power switch (rather than hold it) you put the game into pause mode. The screen goes off, your game pauses, and the battery barely drains at all (as in you can leave it in this state for days on end). A quick flip of the switch again, and your game comes right back up. I only turn off my PSP when I need to switch batteries on a long trip, otherwise, it’s always in freeze state.
I bring this up because it lets you play more involved games ‘on the go’ when you can just flip it off at a moments notice and know it’ll be there later.
Kovacs
An area no handheld has mastered is creating a complementary portable experience to your console one.
Imagine a game that is designed with a mobile component in mind. You could “train” or “tune” or “grind” (whatever) a character, car, etc. on the move and then seamlessly integrate him/it/whatever back into you console game when you re-sync.
No-one has *fully* done this before. It could be massive.
cam the man
Let’s hope someone can give it a really good go and if they get it right it could be massive.
Fingers crossed.
Darth Newdar
Absolutely. What I’d love is portable PS3, so I can play exactly the same levels that I can on the PS3 in LittleBigPlanet, or contribute towards my career in a sports game. If the NGP does this, I’m in.
topshot09
I like the idea of the cloud saving feature if it allow you to play the game on ps3 the continue on the ngp when you’re out an about. But one has to wonder if you would have to buy the same game two times.
Kovacs
Nope – it will use the PSN which means buy once, play anywhere.
topshot09
it’s not really gonna be the same for retail games.
Kovacs
If you check the source article you’ll see that all launch games on the NGP will be on the Store on launch day.
Not all retail games on the PS3 will (or even should) work on the NGP. What’s the point in that? A game that specifically is designed to work on both, however, you will not have to buy twice.
topshot09
I like the idea of the cloud saving feature if it allows you to play the game on ps3 then continue on the ngp when you’re out an about. But one has to wonder if you would have to buy the same game two times.
simplebob
Given the power of the NGP I wonder if folding@home will be on it?
eye8have9you3
unlikely, I reckon as most handhelds are used in short bursts, and any WUs need to be completed in quite a short time (like a week I think)
beeje13
Lol, the Work units wiould have to be an hour and a half max, because of the battery power.
Or Stanford could create a special core to take advantadge of the 4 core GPU, so you can do other things (not game) while folding!
bunimomike
“* the Eurogamer article says PS3 here, but we presume they meant NGP.”
Unless they meant PSP? Either way, bloody awesome news. Very pleased for the developers and consumers alike.
billsmugs
I was thinking that perhaps the quotee (don’t know if that’s a word, but it should be) meant that it ran just like the PS3 engine on PS3 (ie 60fps, high res etc)
Kovacs
Quoter – someone who quotes.
beeje13
The Eurogamer article might be right, the NGP might run PS3 games without any changes, but wipeout has got to be the most optimized and technically adavanced game out there, until RAGE gets released anyway.
billsmugs
@Kovacs I was thinking “quotee” as “someone who is quoted” (like employer/employee)
Klart
I want it now.
StevenHibs
I want one too, looks amazing, sounds amazing, lets hope you can simply pick up from where you left off on PS3
BIGAL-1992
Sounjds very good. Sony could be on to a winner here, provided they do their pricing correctly.
Bilbo_bobbins
wow, if this works correctly this is a huge thing for Sony.