Still surprising if not a surprise, Sony has made the decoupling their PlayStation games from PlayStation hardware — like the new PSP2/NGP — official with the launch of PlayStation Suite. Android is the only other platform targeted right now (which makes sense given Sony Ericsson’s Android phone investment) but could the 160 million install base strong iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad iOS platform come online in the future?
Hey, Verizon is getting the iPhone so anything can happen, right? Still, with Apple maintaining tight control of the App Store they and Sony would probably have to come to a special licensing and development deal to get the same type of PlayStation content onto iOS. It wouldn’t be as easy as Android and likely webOS would. Sony could always develop/port iOS-specific versions of their titles but that would take more effort on their part, even with 160 million reasons to do it.
Sony also announced their next generation portable (NGP), aka the PSP2 and it’s a monster in every sense of the word. If you thought the rumored Apple A5 chip was hot, this thing is on fire with a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 and quad-core PowerVR SGX543 chipset (they claim it’s close to PS3 in terms of power). No word on what kind of battery that will require to deliver significant online gaming life. The 5-inch OLED display is 960×544 (close to iPhone 4’s 960×640 but at a much larger size) and touch sensitive. It’s got at the 3Gs and Wi-Fis, as well as a touch-sensitive area on the back of the device so you can swipe without obscuring the display. Dual cameras, dual analog thumbsticks and the usual PS controls round out the input methods. It’s also got a new interface that they claim is more social but — at least so far — doesn’t look as clean or consistent as the old crossbar. Sony does say it will be ready for a holiday 2011 release which will put it up against iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, and iPad 2 (with iPad 3 on its way).
Both Sony and Nintendo have been losing mobile gaming share to iOS over the least couple years, will hardware like the PSP2 and software like PlayStation suite start turning that tide?
[Android Central, Engadget]
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