GS: In terms of software, one of the biggest challenges the PSP had was that software releases were inconsistent after the strong launch. What has Sony learned from that, and how are you applying it to NGP?
SY: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s one of the biggest things we always talked about when we were approaching the design of NGP, you know, we were so excited about PSP with big screen and beautiful screen and in PS2-like graphics just as we are talking about PS3-like graphics on NGP.
Yeah, so there is a similarity there. But the bigger thing we learned about PSP was that people get accustomed to the graphic side of things pretty quickly. And once the standard is set, that’s something people expect from their games. So that will require constant evolution. So we have to keep up evolving and always, you know, provide a certain level of performance on the system.
But, you know, once the graphics appreciation has passed, it all comes down to the actual game play. And our biggest mistake, I would say, with PSP was we were just so happy to provide the PS2 gaming on the go, and we kind of stopped there. We had the Wi-Fi capability with PSP and in some of the countries, like in Japan, playing with other friends with Wi-Fi became a huge phenomena.
But outside that, there is very little that you are able to put on PSP. So what we wanted to do with NGP was, besides the great graphics and CPU, think on what interface we could put in to make the gameplay really stand out. You know, something that you cannot even do with the PS3. So the front and back touch pad, the dual analog sticks, social connectivities, and the camera AR.
All these you cannot replicate in the console experience. So we have to show what this means with our own games. But we are confident the NGP has enough of these elements that as we go, people will see the gaming experience on NGP will be unique enough. So that they would want to play NGP games in addition to what they have in the console. That’s the difference.
On connectivity with PS3:
QUOTEGS: So we're seeing today that there is the possibility of compatibility between the gaming experience on the NGP and the PS3. Is this a focus for the NGP?
SY: Absolutely yeah, that’s something we are very excited to be working on. For one thing, the core performance is very similar, much closer between PS3 and NGP compared to PSP and PS3. So some games can be made available for both PS3 and PSP. Like, we are showing, Wipeout today, how the online compatibility, when you play Wipeout online, your opponent might be coming from PS3 or NGP.
And that’s very exciting for us. And the other point too is, we can provide, through the PSN, because we expect most of the NGP users will have a PSN account, as compared to PSP. When we launched PSP, we didn’t have PSN yet.
So the connectivity would not be limited by connecting cables between PSP and PS3, with USB. But we can create connectivities through PSN and we can do some cool stuff that we are not talking about as yet, but we’ll be very happy to show pretty soon what you can do between PS3 and NGP.
