Sony Next Generation Portable and PlayStation Suite

Sony’s certainly creating waves over in Japan at time of publishing, as they have announced the “Next Generation Portable” which will comprise of five new concepts – a revolutionary user interface, social connectivity, location-awareness, augmented reality, and PlayStation Suite compatibility. This cross-platform PlayStation experience (PlayStation Suite) does sound appealing, but on to the main meat – the Next Generation Portable, which is a far cry from the PSP2 (in terms of naming convention). It will use physical media for games, aptly known as New Game Media, which comes in the form of a flash memory-based card. Guess UMD is dead, long live the UMD! Boasting a 5″ display at 960 x 544 resolution, it isn’t as impressive as the iPhone 4’s 960 x 640 3.5″ display, although the use of an OLED panel will certainly strike a soft spot in many gamers out there. No portable 3D just yet though, so start saving your pennies now for a holiday season release later this year. Other hardware specifications include 3G and GPS support, front and rear touchpads, an electronic compass on 3-axes, and more importantly – quality games. You know you’re in for a treat if history is of any indication with one Killzone title and a yet untested augmented reality title known as “Reality Fighters”. Any takers? Of course, you can also read all about the PlayStation Store for Android here. Hit the break for images of the Next Generation Portable: