Gary Steel
By year’s end, Sony has revealed, a new hand-held gaming device will be in the market.
The new hand-held wonder – currently called NGP, meaning ‘Next Generation Portable’, will reportedly offer a host of cool stuff. These include: a touch pad (on the front and back), motion sensors, 3G access, two cameras and a lovely 5-inch LED screen.
This is all very exciting, but really, isn’t it all a few years too late? Does Sony expect the new device, with its proprietary memory, the outshine the proliferation of gaming doodads out there?
Only time will tell. In the meantime, Sony has also announced that it is to offer its PlayStation games on a variety of portable devices, but this will also take some time to implement, and is expected to occur towards the end of 2011.
We love Sony’s attention to detail, but can’t help thinking that amongst the buzzing viral hotpot of free and affordable apps (particularly those available for the iPhone and iPad) that the corporate giant might just be too slow off the mark.
Ech. Good luck with that. Knowing Sony, it will be a good device, hampered by some small but terribly annoying inadequacy or eccentricity. Against the might of Apple’s design and engineering teams, not to mention the hungry folk at Google, Sony will have to lift its game.