At a press conference in Japan earlier today, Sony introduced the successor to the PSP, codenamed the Next Generation Portable, or NGP. Specs for the new gaming handheld include a 5-inch OLED touchscreen with 960×544 resolution, 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, compass, and GPS, and two cameras, one front- and one rear-facing. As expected, the device is powered by a multi-core ARM processor—a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9—that works alongside a quad-core PowerVR SGX534MP4+ GPU. Notably, code found within the iOS 4.3 beta suggested that Apple is planning to include a similar POWERVR SGX543 GPU from Imagination Technologies in an upcoming product or products, and as the successor to the ARM Cortex-A8 at the heart of Apple’s A4 chip, the A9 is a logical next step for Apple’s iOS devices.
In addition, the NGP features a rear touch-sensitive panel, dual analog sticks, a traditional d-pad, four Playstation action buttons, a six-axis motion detecting system, and shoulder trigger buttons. Games will be offered on flash memory-based cards or downloaded from the Playstation Store; Sony also announced that it will be launching PlayStation Suite, a new initiative that will see certain Android devices become PlayStation Certified, allowing them to play PlayStation games; the company also plans to open a PlayStation Store for Android where users will be able to download content directly to their device.