Sony to spill the beans on the PSP2 this Thursday
It’s finally coming to an end. The rumors, idle guessing, debates, questionable leaks, vague hints, endless photoshops and fan made concept renders. All of it. Because on Thursday, Sony are going to tell us about the PSP2. That mythical device that has remained stuck in the ether between reality and speculation for months will finally take it’s first steps into a corporeal form that we can fully comprehend.
Of course we know it exists, we’ve all known for a long time, the first moment a lot of us even picked up a PSP we probably thought “there’s going to be another one of these at some point”. But Sony continually refused to even acknowledge the very concept of the device along with its equally mysterious but less anticipated PlayStation Phone cousin. While that might seem silly and everything, it was probably for the best; announcing the PSP2 is the only weapon Sony have with which to even attempt to dent 3DS sales (not likely), so it’s no surprise that they would want to hold onto their trump card until the last possible moment. So as a nice little send off lets run through some of the more prolific rumors about this mythical device along with some final words of speculation, hopefully by Thursday we can finally put most of them to rest one way or another.
The PSP2 and the PSP-Phone are the same device
I wouldn’t bet on it. Very little about what we’ve heard about each device matches up and there’s already been some pretty authentic looking videos of the PSP-Phone in action. Whats more, the PSP-Phone is supposedly being handled by the Ericsson branch of Sony, who traditionally have absolutely nothing to do with the PSP development.
It’s as powerful as the PS3
You always get rumors like this every time some new gaming hardware is on the horizon, and it’s almost always a mixture of PR hype combined with knee jerk fanboy reactions to faked screenshots. That’s not to say such a thing is impossible, but I honestly don’t recommend anyone take any notice of such claims until you’ve seen what the device can do for yourself. Also bare in mind that even Sony are unlikely to make their own flagship platform redundant unless they already have a replacement in the works, and judging by Sony’s awful track record at keeping secrets we would already be running the rumor mill at 300% capacity if a PS4 were nearing completion.
It’s got significantly more RAM than an Xbox 360
While it’s still very far fetched, its not an entirely beyond imagination that this could happen. People easily forget than the 360 has been around for over 5 years now and even back then its 512MB of RAM would be considered pathetic when compared to even the most moderately spec’ed PCs. Whether there’s been enough breakthroughs in those past 5+ years to reduce the size of decent RAM chips down to something that could fit inside a PSP is something else entirely.
Rear mounted touch screen
I really can’t even think of a single practical use for such a thing, but an overwhelming number of reports from multiple sources all point towards it being a reality. Sony should know better than to try and compete with Nintendo’s mastery of gimmicky hardware, they’re only going to get burned.
It will feature a new title from the Uncharted franchise
Uncharted is one of the few major IPs Sony still have under their thumb, so they’d be foolish not pursue development of such a title; If they really want to market PSP2 as a powerhouse then nothings going to do it better than Uncharted’s luscious visuals.
Developers have had PSP2 development kits for a long time
Almost a certainty, it’s common practice for manufacturers to send out dev kits many months before new hardware launches, especially Sony who rely very heavily on 3rd party support for their gaming devices. It’s probably a significant factor in why there’s been so many PSP2 leaks recently, with developers unable to sit on such a big secret for so long.
The dev kits were shaped like the PSPgo, retail model will be more like an old school PSP
This is supposedly due to PSPgo style PSP2s overheating after extended use. It sounds about right; Sony have always been about power over style, so it’s not difficult to imagine them reverting to an older design in order to preserve the PSP2s specs. But while the Go might have been poorly received as a pure digital device, the actual design was fairly popular, so it would be a shame to see such a step forward go to waste like that.
It will no longer use UMDs, instead relies on digital downloads only
It’s very possible. It would also be suicidal; after PSPGo Sony should know better than anyone that the world is far from ready for a DLC only platform for high end content. To even consider making such an approach practical the PSP2 would need something special, something like…..
3G support
This would be a very very big deal. One of the reasons the PSP struggles in this day and age is that its online functionality is limited to places with Wi-Fi hotspots, public versions of which are very expensive, awkward and potentially risky in terms of data security. 3G would make getting online with the PSP2 very convenient for almost everyone and possibly open up the world of DLC (for a fee of course) to a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t bother. If Sony managed to get that sort of functionality on the PSP2 then props to them, it may even save their ass when it comes to competing with Nintendo and Apple.
It will have an OLED screen
According to wikipedia, that stands for: Organic Light-Emitting Diode. I’m not going to demean either of us by pretending I know what that means. However from what I can gather from tech nerds it’s both a very powerful and rather expensive technology, two things that are a given in any piece of Sony tech.
So what can we learn form all this? Well nothing really, other than Sony still has laughable PR control. Until they’re willing to actually address all these rumors we have no idea what the PSP2 really is. Perhaps all they’re all true? Perhaps they’re all false? Perhaps the PSP2 is made out of string held together by miniature spiders? At this point, I think there’s only three things we can truly say about the device with any confidence.
1) PSP2 will be the most powerful hand held gaming console available upon release.
2 ) PSP2 will be absurdly expensive, even compared to the 3DS.
3 ) Under the pretence of “supporting homebrew development” hackers will brake the PSP2s security wide open within a day of release, ensuring the continual existence of a thriving piracy community.