The Future of Mobile Gaming: Sony NGP, Xperia Play and More

The past couple of weeks have seen some pretty big reveals concerning the world of handheld mobile gaming. Following on the heels of Nintendo's hands-on showing of the new Nintendo 3DS, Sony has finally shown pictures of the Playstation Phone, aka the Xperia Play. A few days ago, they also shared details about their new purely gaming successor to the PSP, the NGP.

This week we are taking a quick look at all of these soon-to-be-players in the portable market.

Guy: The new Sony NGP Next Generation Portable: It finally has a name and a rumored $299 price tag. Sony's next generation portable, heir apparent to the PSP is called...uh, the Next Generation Portable. Generic new name aside, it has a bunch of cool specs which should get mobile gaming fans all hot and bothered:

• Multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting display (OLED) as the front display
• Multi-touch pad on the rear of the device
• Dual analog sticks
• Two cameras (front and rear)
• Software titles on small, dedicated flash memory-based cards
• Three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass
• Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity
• PlayStation Network access, including LiveArea™, Near and Activity log features Trophy Support
• NGP will be able to play PSP titles, minis, PS one classics, video and comics from the PlayStation Store.

Games expected for release include versions from the Uncharted, Killzone and Resistance series. The backward compatibility is nice, but the price point in my opinion is a bit high. Hopefully that gets adjusted in the next few months--especially now that the rival Nintendo 3DS price has been made public.

Yasar: Next up, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. What we know so far: The Xperia Play (PlayStation Phone) is an upcoming phone/handheld gaming system coming from Sony Ericsson.  It's an Android phone that also doubles as a portable PlayStation.  Unlike most smartphones that allow you to additionally play games, the Xperia Play is designed primarily for playing games.  It looks like a phone, but when you open it up you'll see that it features a directional pad and the four gameplay buttons.  You can check out Engadget's Sony Ericsson Xperia Play preview for more details on what the phone can do.    

More is expected to be revealed next week. Stay tuned to this blog space here at the Yasar and Guy Show as we cover all of the official news then.

Guy: Nintendo 3DS: The home of all things Mario rolls out the latest iteration of their popular mobile gaming device complete with stereoscopic 3D capabilities and a $249.99 price tag. Is it me or are handhelds now competing with the basic, low gig versions of consoles in terms of pricing? Anyway, the cost of Nintendo's new machine equals the launch price of the rival Sony PSP which launched in 2005 at the same $250 level. It does, however, exceed the initial launch price of of their own Nintendo DS in 2004 by $100 and the DS Lite by $120. The $170 DSi and $190 DSi XL, which hit the market in 2009 and 2010 respectively, clocked in well under the cost of the new 3DS.

It seems the next generation of handhelds are going to cost you more than they ever have in the past. Personally, I'd just stick with my console games and use my MP3 player or cell phone for gaming on the go. I have a feeling Yasar is about to disagree with me, but I think $250 and up (factor in the actual games you'll have to buy to get started with your new mobile system...) is way too high a price point for mobile games when there are smart-phones out their that can simulate the same gaming experience. (I wuv my wittle Evo, yes I do. Ahem...)

Nevertheless the 3DS will be in stores on March 27th, 2011, at which point you guys can decide for yourselves whether it is worth the deep dig into your pockets.

Yasar: Is the portable handheld market nearing an end? Earlier this week, Kotaku wrote a piece about how the next generation of gaming handhelds may be the last ones to be released.  To summarize for those who don't feel like reading the article, they basically say that smartphones are becoming the main portable gameplay devices since people always have them with them and they're pretty close to being as good as portable gaming devices dedicated solely to gaming.

While this may be true, they forget to point out that the coming portable gaming systems all have unique features that aren't available on smartphones.  As long as the developers of these systems continue to be innovative with the newer generations of portable gaming systems, there will always be a market for them.  And think about it:  Is Angry Birds better than a 3D Super Mario game?  I think not!

Guy:  Well once again, I'm right and Yasar is not wrong. So what do you guys think as portable handhelds move into their Next Gen phase? Discuss with us below or head on over to Twitter and join the conversation over there @SavingsGCapes and @YasarSavings.