Sony is moving its console war machine into the handheld market and yesterday fired its first warning shot at Nintendo, who have dominated this market since the first GameBoy was released. Having seen of both Sega's Game Gear, Neo Geo's pockets' and Nokia's N-Gage, Nintendo might have met its match as the specs for the Sony PSP were announced yesterday.
Sony said that the PSP would give gamers:
"…three-dimensional-CG games incorporating high-quality, full-motion video similar to PlayStation2 can be played anytime, anywhere with PSP"
Backing this claim up is a 4.3 inch, 16:9 widescreen TFT LCD screen that can display 16.77 million colours at 480x272 hi-res, built in stereo speakers and a control pad that builds on the Playstation controller gamers have grown used to and all this in a device weighing in at 260g including the battery.
Games will arrive on a small high-capacity optical disc called UMD (Universal Media Disc) which despite being only 60mm in diameter can hold a staggering 1.8GB of data. Sony are envisaging a whole range of uses for these disc’s with content such as music video clips, movies and sports programs being provided on UMD.
It doesn't end there though…
Also included are USB 2.0 outputs and 802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless LAN. This will give PSP owners a number of connectivity options and the ability to link PSP's together to form a wireless network. With USB connectivity, Sony has the option to be able to link many of its products together, currently announced are a USB Camera, USB GPS and a USB Keyboard though I would be surprised if a linkup to the forthcoming PS3 similar to Nintendo's GameCube/GBA linkup is not announced.
If the developers can really get PS2 quality games on the handheld, Nintendo has a tough act to follow with its Nintendo DS.
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