New L.A. Noire trailer, and of course it looks fantastic.

May 17 is gonna seem like forever.

Go for it. I'd hope you'd cancel your Live subscription too (if you have one) unless you have a lot of friends that you play with on 360. When I got a PS3, I stopped resubscribing to Live and have no regrets at all (granted, I only played the occasional Halo so I never got too much out of it anyway).

Anyone hear about the PSP2 leaks? Looks to be a beast of a machine (though expensive...but with the $250 3DS, I guess that's the way of the future). Supposedly it will have 3G and a touchscreen (in addition to the touchpad on the back that was rumored a while ago).

I mean, if it does everything that the PSP did, but better, I could see myself using it as a MP3 player/small tablet. I'm very excited to see what this machine brings to the table. The 3DS never really excited me all that much once I got past the 3D (and especially after hearing about the battery...yuck), and if any of the rumors about the PSP2 are correct, the 3DS might even seem archaic. I'm just praying there will be a decent battery.

Apparently they're unveiling it on the 27th...which can't come soon enough.

Honestly, if they would announce a LittleBigPlanet 2 "Lite" that features everything LittleBigPlanet 2 does minus the Story mode (it would only feature level creation and community levels made on both PS3 and PSP2) for a cheaper price, or even free for owners of LBP 2 on PS3, that would be the greatest thing ever. I'm not sure how much mainstream appeal LBP has, but I think something like this could be a system seller. You'd have unlimited re-playability, and with a 3G connection, you'd always have something to play. Imagine this...you start working on a masterpiece for LBP2, but you have to leave town for an extended amount of time. Instead of dragging your PS3 along, you could just bring your PSP2 to continue work on your level.

Heck, if Sony launched this "Lite" version already loaded onto the system they'd sell a ton of them, no doubt. It'd probably be the equivalent of what Sonic 1 did as a pack-in did for the Genesis.

The PSP2 was announced, codenamed NGP. It looks pretty awesome.

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2011/01/ … or-to-psp/
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/27/ngp-p … e-gallery/

Uncharted, Resistance, and LittleBigPlanet , are coming to the NGP.

I can't imagine the pricing on this, but if it's under $300 and comes out this year, I may just buy this over the 3DS and get the 3DS some other time.

Also, apparently Sony's working on the ability to play PS3 games and continue playing them on the NGP device. Bad. Ass.

Last edited by Timothy R (January 27, 2011 (02:12am))

So far the only game of 2011 that I am looking forward to is L.A. Noire. Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm both look quite good, but they are published by EA so it's a no - no.

I happen to like EA, but I'm a sports fanatic, so of course I'd say that.

As for the NGP, I'd have to see it at my local retailer first before I make any assumtions. I mean, Sony kind of screwed themselves by not linking that console to the PS3, especially with the releases of LBP2 and L.A. Noire in the near future. If they did link the two together, it would be a great marketing success, because for the full pleasure of gaming, you'd need both the PS3 and NGP-the cost of both together being from $550-$600. With the addition of games, it comes around $750-$800, which I'm sure many people (At least in the US) can afford. I, myself at the moment, would perfer the 3DS, purely for the fact that is 3D (I'm very shallow when it comes to 3D...).

I didn't say handheld gaming device. I said handheld entertainment device. This NGP isn't just competing with the 3DS, it's competing with cell phones, PMPs, and tablets (to name a few) with features such as 3G, gps, etc.

My problem was with the idea of a new media format, not a different media format. The UMD, to borrow a bit of internet parlance, was an epic fail. Every time I walked into a Wal-Mart or Fred Meyer or such I saw shelves and shelves of unbought UMDs, begging to be purchased as a DVD alternative. The article stated the new format would be similar to SD cards - why not just go with regular SD format? (Other than to sell their brand of cards (see: Memory Stick))

You're free to disregard this all, of course. I've actually never owned a dedicated handheld gaming device. It seems like a cool device, is all the hype justified?

Yeah, Piracy on the DS was (and still is) a pretty big issue since they just used SD cards. using modded R3 cartridges and stuff like that makes hacking the DS extremely easy - but Nintendo sold a !@#$ tonne of DS, and no doubt they made a large profit on each unit sold, so they weren't really bothered what people did with it once they bought it.

Anyway, the 3D on the DS isn't as attractive as so many of the features listed for the NGP are. But I'm concerned about the battery life on both devices, nothing's been said about the NGPs battery, and apparently the 3DS battery only lasts 3 hours (on a 3DS game, with 3D on, optimal settings - lowest brightness, muted, etc).

What? Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania) said during the conference that he had a vision of creating an experience you could play at home and also bring with you out of the house - and he specified afterwards this meant playing the same core game on the NGP and PS3, as in they are almost identical. And if this is happening with more games, it will likely only happen with first party games - not stuff like LA Noire. Anyway, LA Noire is coming out like 5-6 months before the NGP is coming out, it'd be really strange if they did incorporate cross platform gameplay so late in the game.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming Call of Duty game on the NGP is Modern Warfare 3, since there's something like 3-4 dev. teams working on it, and if they were able to have cross platform gameplay between PS3 and the NGP, that would be crazy.

And it seems like all the titles announced are unique games, which interests me more than nintendogs and N64 ports.

And the problem with the UMD was that Sony thought they invented the next universal media format, and they didn't support it at all. They'll be fine if they just release a new type of cartridge and support it properly, as a game cartridge.

Also, I think Sony's investing a lot into this, and hopefully they'll be so determined to get it out there as a major contender they'll be willing to take the financial hit to keep it down closer to the 3DS, much like they did with the PS3 - but I'm not sure how they'll play that out, since it took them 4 years to actually make a profit from the PS3 - and the NGP seems like a much bigger risk. It could be the massive success that the Playstation was over the Nintendo 64. But theres the very real possibility it could be one of the biggest failures in the history of ever.

damn, this thing is gonna cost so much in Australia. I hope it's not region locked, because I'm not going to pay AUD$600 for a PSP2 (~USD$499.50)

My gamertag on XBOX Live is: ShuttleTyder1um.