NGP is a powerful handheld, but it won't rival the PlayStation 3 in terms of raw computing grunt, Sony engineers said at GDC last night.
Instead, the new portable sits about "halfway" between the original PSP and PS3, Kotaku reports.
"Well, it's not going to run at 2 GHz because the battery would last five minutes... and it would probably set fire to your pants."
Coombes also said NGP will use four symmetrical CPU cores, compared to a single core, single hardware thread for the PSP, and that it'll have "a lot of memory compared to the PSP", its RAM being closer in size to PS3. NGP games will be stored on 2 GB or 4 GB cards.
Sony took the wraps of a new NGP augmented reality tech demo at GDC yesterday too, leaving our man Tim stunned.
Comments
21 comments so far...
Gambini on 3 Mar '11 said:
Erm... so a PS2 then?
Imaduck on 3 Mar '11 said:
PS2.7145 to be rough
A strong wave of PS3 esque visual quality but limited to a scale and angle equal to or slightly greater than the PS2. Still leaving it the most powerful handheld by miles. Nice to see them be honest about it
El Mag on 3 Mar '11 said:
Which is very surprising for Sony. Usually they'd say work three jobs to buy one, and it's more powerful than Simon Cowell and Jesus combined.
boskersrevenge on 3 Mar '11 said:
lol
But good on them setting the record straight and good for them, as you know you'd get idiots bemoaning that it's not as powerful as a PS3, as they get their Mum to buy them CoD.
Imaduck on 3 Mar '11 said:
Agreed Mag, I'm in enough hot water on here as it is though without angry SDF members after me
wasn't going to rock the Sony boat 
. I wonder what kind of boat the guy in charge of Sony has 
On this day, me and Sony are not quite as far apart, heading back towards PS2 days, keep at it plox, I miss that time.
Very_Silver_Ownz on 3 Mar '11 said:
will i need 3 jobs and working overtime to get this ?
Queen Skillage on 3 Mar '11 said:
Whatever kinds of boats they have you can guarantee it's a party EXACTLY like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfISlG ... re=channel
Imaduck on 3 Mar '11 said:
Depends what you work as I'd guess
rbt2 on 3 Mar '11 said:
Not if you've got a spare kidney.
El Mag on 3 Mar '11 said:
I saw the Mario beat down you had, it was tough i was scared for your life at one point. I always thought Nintendo fans were calm but lordy. I was trying to get Ross Kemp to protect you, best i could manage at short notice was Steven Seagal with a dodgy hip so i left it.
boskersrevenge on 3 Mar '11 said:
Nintendo fans are mentalists!
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/Young%20Frankenstein.jpg
English Shmuppet on 3 Mar '11 said:
Bout as powerful as the 360 perhaps?
Silentbob293 on 3 Mar '11 said:
Based on what they have shown such as the MGS4, Killzone and Uncharted demo's it seems more powerful than a PS2?
Imaduck on 3 Mar '11 said:
Got to hand it to them, Nintendo fans are devoted, and rightly so. Nintendo has a hell of a history. I guess I just went in with the "say it blunt" attitude, that way you go through the raging defence force faster and over time you eventually get to some good discussions and sharing of thoughts. It becomes a sort of "let's question what we take for granted" thing. The wise fans organised the highs and lows (not that I really deserved their time
), put things in perspective and presented a brilliant case for "outsiders". They did a great job I reckon 
On topic, I'm really pretty intrigued to see what the PSP2 can do. Every console has it's highs and lows, it's all in the way the games they're running are made, how well the company knows their toolbox and how visionary and determined they are. I doubt there'll be much of a difference between the PSP2 and the 3Ds in that sense. They both have the potential for so much. Nintendo know the handheld market like nobody else to my mind, but Sony learnt a ton from the PSP (then encapsulated all their mistakes in the Go for some reason
).
On 1 hand, the PSP2 has all the best tech bling really, it's the cutting edge. But the 3DS has 2 screens, 3D and all the rest of it. So .... where 1 falls the other will soar, it'll balance out I reckon, very nicely too. Would be cool to see a sort of new Pokemon. As in like a new equivalent to the handhelds of what the orginal Pokemon games were to the Gameboy. It is a "Round 2!" situation. Level fields and all the potential in the world. Exciting
nuggit3000 on 3 Mar '11 said:
Anyone who thought the NGP would be as powerful as the PS3 in term of raw power were deluded.
I think previous comments, such as 'games will look identical on both systems' have gotten out of control.
The hi-res NGP screen will mean they cant save much on lower resolution games, but I think the small screen will mean games wont need such high polygon count to look the same as the PS3 version to the average human eye, this will free up so much power to get all the physics of a game running.
boskersrevenge on 3 Mar '11 said:
I know! Is there any real videos out there of something where we can see the games up close? It's very annoying! I want to see the shizzle!
Right with you on this round or hand-helds; both the 3DS and the PSP2 are really raising the bar in their own way. Sony need to put the fight into the PSP2, which is something I felt lacked from the first. Get some really heavy 3rd parties on board and from the looks of what we've seen so far, they just might have done that.
Gaseous Snake on 3 Mar '11 said:
This'll just go the same way that the console would have without the 360; the 3DS has all the gimmicks (i.e. 3D), and the NGP has raw power. This is remarkably similar to the PS3 and Wii; casual and core will be split, both will get good sales, end of. The console war only existed to be more than that because Microsoft and Sony both went for the core market. Sony won't have this problem; however, Nintendo might face competition from Apple's iPad, since they both go for a similar market (since there's no core games on the iPad).
gmcb007 on 3 Mar '11 said:
Sony NOT bragging?!?
What the hell is going on???? TIME PARADOX!!!! SNAAAAKKKKKEEEEE!
Joking aside I cant wait to see the games in action with my own eyes before I decide that I want to buy it
Michael622632 on 3 Mar '11 said:
Sony might just be playing down (or at least not exaggerating as much as before) the power of the NGP to help differentiate between it and the PS3. If they could play the exact same game, I dobut many people would buy both a PS3 and an NGP.
liveswired on 3 Mar '11 said:
3DS is more powerful than Wii - looks like the 3DS and NGP are closer than I thought.
kimoak on 3 Mar '11 said:
Nintendo fans are pretty old... They are wise, but at the same time they go all tourrettes once in a while. Grumpy old men/women and the like. It's normal with old age. I know... I am getting on a bit myself.