When I quietly entered a small meeting room at Sony's headquarters, I only expected to see Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. What I didn't expect was a set of NGP's sitting on the table, ready for me to play.
Suddenly, the 11 hour flight to Japan was worth it.
一瞬间,我感到此番乘飞机11小时前来日本真是不虚此行。
Shortly after the next PSP, codenamed NGP for "Next Generation Portable", was announced at Sony's PlayStation Meeting in Tokyo, I visited Sony's headquarters for an interview with Yoshida. Before the interview began, I was elated to hold the device for myself and play short demos for Uncharted and Little Deviants.
If you didn't have the chance to read up on the NGP yet, make sure to check our detailed breakdown that documents everything about the device. If you're already caught up, you know that the NGP is a powerful, versatile platform that should have PlayStation fans frothing at the mouth. Although my time with the device was limited to mere minutes, I was already impressed with this beautiful piece of tech.
The NGP is comfortable and stylish. The layout of the sticks felt fantastic and controlling Drake in Uncharted was just like using a DualShock. Yoshida expressed his immense pride in the joysticks, as they seem to balance small size with comfortable, accurate input.
I was surprised at how small the face buttons were on the device, but they were big enough to hit comfortably with the thumb. I was more eager to try out the two touch screens, which worked splendidly. Although I doubt I'd play Uncharted by touching a bunch of cliffs, the option is there and it felt right. The back touch screen is more exciting to me, as it allows clever in-game manipulation without obstructing the player's view of the screen. Playing Little Deviants and pushing the back of the device to form a hill on the front of the screen was great.
As I mentioned numerous times during the conference live blog, the visuals really do steal the show. This is one of the most powerful handhelds I've ever seen and the games it's running look close to what the PlayStation 3 can do. The environment displayed in the Uncharted demo was stunning.
I rarely call a device "sexy," as I prefer using the term when discussing actual people, but I will admit that the NGP is sexy. It's comfortable to hold, it supports an incredible array of control schemes, and the user interface demonstrations left me speechless. This is the kind of device that does not disappoint, and I'm already tempted to put down money on a preorder.
If only I knew how much it was gonna' be...