Sony has
officially debuted the successor to the PSP. They've codenamed it the NGP, which I take to mean they are officially relaunching the Neo Geo Pocket brand. Go Sony.
The thing looks like it's as big as a Sega Nomad, but it does pack nearly every conceivable gameplay option you could want: dual analog sticks (that look waaay more "stick-like" than the current PSP's little nub); touch screen on the front AND touch pad on the back (which seems a little pointless, but could be a more elegant solution to the problem that the DS originally set out to solve with its second screen: how to do touch-screen gaming without obscuring the action on screen); six-axis motion tilt; front and rear facing cameras, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth; and backwards compatibility with all current PSP download content (as the UMD drive has been axed in favor of flash memory cards).
Current unknowns are battery life and price. No optical drive and an OLED screen are power savers, but probably not enough to offset all that battery draining wireless connectivity, not to mention the quad-core ARM A9 that drives this thing. Price will be the biggest determining factor, I think. Nintendo may have priced themselves out of successfully targeting their most reliable demographic (families with young children) in favor of delivering features hardcore gamers have been demanding. Sony has out-featured Nintendo with the NGP; if they can pull off a miracle and out-price them as well, they could finally pose a serious threat to Nintendo's dominance.
Oh, not in Utica, no...It's an Albany expression.