Carmack Says NGP Is a 'Generation Beyond' Smartphones 190
donniebaseball23 writes "id co-founder and all-around programming genius John Carmack, who has become a bigger fan of the iPhone and iOS platform recently, has given his take on the technical aspects of Sony's Next Generation Portable. He says that 'the Sony NGP [will] perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs.' Essentially, the fast approaching round of iOS and Android devices will still be well behind the capabilities of Sony's new handheld, which comes close to reproducing PS3-like visuals."
New details have emerged since the NGP's confirmation yesterday: there will be different versions of the device, all of which can connect over Wi-Fi, but only one of which has 3G connectivity. The battery life will be similar to the original PSP, and the NGP will have two proprietary memory card slots. Sony says they considered 3D for the device, but they don't see how it translates to portable gaming. 1up has a hands-on with the NGP, as well as video of Epic's Unreal Engine 3 tech demo.
Which means... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Carmack Says NGP Is a 'Generation Beyond' Smartphones"
Which means it probably has a price to match. Sadly.
In the past... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the past, portable gaming systems were always WAY beyond cell phones and other mobile devices. The fact that they recently caught up must be very scary for Sony.
It must worry them even more that there are dozens of new smartphones every year, but the next PSP will be 5 years from now. That's a lot of competition.
Because that's what he just admitted... That smartphones are competition to the PSP. There's not much point in comparing them, otherwise.
Here's, let's try this: The PSP NGP is far more advanced than the space shuttle. ... Yeah, that just doesn't make sense. The PSP NGP is far inferior to a supercomputer. Yup, again, nonsense.
lol (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think Sony would have learned by now.
what kind of generation? (Score:3, Insightful)
In portable gaming device land, one generation is somewhere around 5 years, which would be OK for sony, since for the entire lifespan of the thing, it will lead smartphones in terms of specs. In mobile phone land, a generation is around 1 year (you know, to get the general cattle frothing at the mouth for the new shiny for a few months before their contract is up for renewal), see apple if you need evidence, 1 apple, 1 year, 1 iphone...
Now guess what happens when sony release the NGP next holiday season, only to be overtaken by phones within a year.
Also, everyone claiming this thing is as powerfull as a PS3, can i have some of what you are smoking?
Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, well despite all of their past media format defeats, they just won on BluRay so now they are more convinced than ever. They're like the person that's been pumping $100 worth of quarters into the slot machine all day and just got a $10 payoff...they're on a roll now. So they double down by playing 2 slot machines at once, so they can double their "winnings".
Re:OK! OK! We get it already.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Orginal Gameboy almost sold 119 million, Gameboy Color sold 118 million, Gameboy Advanced sold 81.51 million. This is not including the other variations to the Gameboy series, like the Micro, Light, Advanced SP etc. Not forgetting Nintendo had competitors like the Sega Gamegear.
60 million of all PSPs over 7 years is shabby.
Does it matter anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the days are numbered for dedicated game machines when you can get Phones and tablets that will do games "good enough" for most and do much more besides.
If I stack a 7" Android tablet against the NGP. I see an open computer with plenty of free, low cost software vs a proprietary game machine with expensive proprietary apps, expensive proprietary media. I just don't think this model is really going to remain relevant anymore.