NGP RAM being halved

[GiraffeeDreams]

I've been reading that the Sony NGP may have some of it's RAM cut from the entry level console to make it more cost effective to compete with the 3DS in price.


Personally i think they should just cut the rear touch panel if they wanted to save cost, not nerf the power of the machine, the graphics processor remains the same so that won't affect graphics, but I wonder how much this will affect the games or features?


Rumor: Entry model NGP's RAM to be cut in half?


What do you think?

 

[darfgarf]

Oh they couldn't remove a 'feature' much better to nerf the important stuff

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

The rear panel just emulates the touch screen on the front, but the RAM may limit the games, and if it is just the entry level model that gets cut then some games produced may not work on that one, only working on the higher model(s).

 

[craigix]

Sony know they have to win this portable war in this round or they will be out for good, so they will do whatever it takes to keep all their features. They know the man in the street has no idea about RAM so that's what goes first.


I've a feeling that the NGP is going to be quite dead on arrival though, people have their phones for games now, and the 3DS is.. well.. 3D which gives it quite a gimmick.


The NGP specs may look good now, but what's the chances of phones being equal to or exceeding them next year? Pretty high I'd bet.

 

[Asiyura]

Well, that's Sony for you.


Anyway a console with a company owned store as it's only source for games (since there is no physical support for the games in NGP) is a console I won't buy!


Digital support is only good for small and cheap games.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

That's true, still just a rumor at the moment so it may turn out not to be true. Just wonder how Killzone and Uncharted would suffer as a result..


I know price is going to be a big factor in how well it does, well E3 is just around the corner so we should find out for certain then.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

Well, that's Sony for you.


Anyway a console with a company owned store as it's only source for games (since there is no physical support for the games in NGP) is a console I won't buy!


Digital support is only good for small and cheap games.

It uses a proprietry SD style cart for games, it's not digital only (that was the PSP Go), they're using these carts as you can increase the amount of storage on them, unlike discs.

 

[Asiyura]

At least, they learnt a bit from the "Go" debacle…


If only they could learn from the PSN debacle, now

(EDIT: I think it's a recent evolution of the NGP concept. IIRC, during the early talks they were going the dematerialized way)

 

[Cameleon]

The actual story, not some rumour swirling the internet, is that the NGP's original spec was 256MB RAM. Sony considered doubling it and told developers if the upgrade was going ahead they'd hear around GDC. Sony simply decided not to double the RAM. By the time places like Eurogamer, Kotaku and the ilk got wind of the news they had already reported 512 MB RAM so the picture is painted, ooops Evil Sony lied again. When in truth these 'Journalists' should really be doing a bit of basic fact checking before reporting on rumour, be it rooted in rality or otherwise.

 

[Nintendo]

Sony know they have to win this portable war in this round or they will be out for good, so they will do whatever it takes to keep all their features. They know the man in the street has no idea about RAM so that's what goes first.


I've a feeling that the NGP is going to be quite dead on arrival though, people have their phones for games now, and the 3DS is.. well.. 3D which gives it quite a gimmick.


The NGP specs may look good now, but what's the chances of phones being equal to or exceeding them next year? Pretty high I'd bet.

1. They have a bigger chance to win it this time around.


2. The 3DS isn't making much noise.


3. The sad thing is and imo, as soon as NGP launches there will be smart phones out there already twice it's overall spec power.

 

[neko]

What's this about OMAP5? So Sony is going from 4 CPU cores to 2?

 

[Nintendo]

Craig, where did it say that they're going from 4 CPU cores to 2?

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

As long as Sony have a strong launch line up it should do fine regardless of specs, if OoT and Super Mario (as well as the web browser and the store) were on the 3DS at launch that could have made a much bigger splash.


Also, Sthe NGP my now be called the PS Vita, again a rumor, that's over at Joystiq, we'll find out if all of this rumor doodah is fact in a week.


Until then I'm just going to quietly hope for Prinny 3 and a new WipEout.

 

[Asiyura]

I bought my PSP only for WipeOut, then I found a bunch of other interesting games (princess crown, echochrome, …) and started playing PSX classics on it.


But even a new Wipeout on the NGP won't sell me one.

I still have to finish WipeOut Pulse & HD anyway.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

I love WipEout HD, and when i brought the PSP on launch Pure was my first title, I brought EchoChrome on the PS3 from the Hong Kong store which was some 6 months earlier than here, fantastic concept

 

[Cameleon]

IMO the games that Sony need to have a huge impact with the NGP will be at launch are:- Uncharted, Killzone, Resistance, Ratchet and Clank, Wipeout, and a God of War title *EDIT* and Twisted Metal!. If those were all in the launch line up I'd buy all of them, then start looking at what the 3rd parties are bringing to the table.

 

[Caine]

I've a feeling that the NGP is going to be quite dead on arrival though, people have their phones for games now

Interesting quote considering you sell handheld game consoles.


I do hope you are right though, it would mean less competition for the Pandora.

 

[Exophase]

Craig, where did it say that they're going from 4 CPU cores to 2?

They didn't. I don't know where the rumor came from but it's not going to happen. There's no way OMAP5 will be ready in 2011. It's strictly a 28nm part. You'll be lucky to see it in a product in 2012. Besides, OMAP chips are relatively expensive, and Sony isn't going to use an off-the-shelf SoC when it can license IP directly. It's also known that IMG has made modifications to SGX543MP4 on Sony's behest (they've said so themselves), this wouldn't be consistent with OMAP5. It's also known that NGP is dedicating one of its four cores for OS resources and obviously quad-core has been one of the major selling points.. right now we don't even know if OMAP5 will be offered with MP4 GPU (at least not at first).


(this is kind of why Tweet's annoy me.. they barely give you room to even try to substantiate a claim, lending themselves to ridiculous rumors)

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

IMO the games that Sony need to have a huge impact with the NGP will be at launch are:- Uncharted, Killzone, Resistance, Ratchet and Clank, Wipeout, and a God of War title *EDIT* and Twisted Metal!. If those were all in the launch line up I'd buy all of them, then start looking at what the 3rd parties are bringing to the table.

I second that, Twisted Metal is making a come back supposedly later this year for PS3.


The 3DS didn't do well on launch because of it's poor initial line up, OoT if the first big title for it 2 months after launch.

 

[Cameleon]

I think that the 3DS may well explode in popularity after the release of OoT, and maybe again after Paper and Super Mario are released.