Sony have basically taken over Android gaming in one move. On smart phones the competitors will be Apple vs Microsoft vs Sony (via Android).
Well, this won't be the only SDK on Android, but it possibly represents the largest unified game platform. However, unless it gets a PS3 implementation quickly, it'll only be good for NGP's and Sony mobiles at the moment. The moment PS3 get's a version, that's 50 million potential buyers. If that content works on their mobiles too, the whole package value because substantial.
This actually has huge implications, every Sony Ericsson device is going to ship with this and Sony are talking to other Android manufacturers about rolling it out on their devices.
This is the most striking thing with Sony of late. Old Sony was all about forging their own path, leading the way. They then got left behind. Now they seem to be much more about collaboration, creating standards and supporting them, seeing that the best way to compete with the opposition is to befriend them and work together, taking a little of all their labours and
vice versa. The up side for Sony is whatever hardware advances may come, they don't have to race to compete!
The minimum specs for PS Suite is ARM A8 single core @ 800MHz, 512MB RAM, Adreno 205 GPU/PowerVR SGX540/Tesla 2.5 Integrated graphics core....
This is where things start to get worrying. We're going to have different hardware platforms, which means driver issues and basically a PC style possibility of impossible bugs. "I bought this PS game on my old phone. I just upgraded and now it doesn't run."
Good call from Sony on this one, but the min specs for the games better not fluctuate and turn it into a PC type scenario. Hopefully devs target the baseline for good performance. Overall, great move.
As above, the PC type scenario could be a plague limiting progress. Discrete hardware can achieve far better each generation than legacy-bound software platforms. Hopefully the past 15 years of graphics libs and abstraction layers and SDKs and drivers has provided enough material to inform a proper clean-architecture that is stable and can grow.
I've read this release multiple times from the ir site. I only see PS One Classics and then of that a subset...
On the software front, SCE plans to provide PS Suite content within this calendar year, starting with original PlayStation games... Moreover, SCE will provide a new game development environment in an effort to ensure new and compelling content is delivered on PS Suite, which will also offer opportunities for a wider base of developers and publishers to further expand their business on various portable devices.
So I read it as at first, only PS One ports, but the engine will support new content and Sony among otrhers will roll it out.
EDIT2: "PlayStation®Suite (PS Suite), announced today, will also closely coordinate with NGP. The newly developed and released game content for AndroidTM based portable devices can also be enjoyed on NGP. As a result, users will have access to not only the most leading-edge content (NGP specific), but also some of the more casual experiences (Mobile targeted PS Suite, like Angry Birds) that typify the mobile market place."
I also take that to mean that the Android side is to be the casual experience.
They're differentiating the NGP experience from the PS Suite experience, saying NGP offers best of both worlds with a higher quality experience developed for NGP, and also PS Suite titles developed to a lower specification platform. Basically you won't be getting Uncharted type AAA games on PS Suite because it has to aim sufficiently broad, but NGP isn't just a AAA handheld and will support PS Suite too.
EDIT:
found a piece reading now but the first thing that jumped out at me was:
“You won’t see it, not as long as I am the president,” Iwata said in an interview on Jan. 9.[/QUOTE]After the heresy of Sonic on a Nintendo console, nothing should come as a shock. This was a brilliant business move by Sony, even if PS fans feel it's the end of their brand of favourite console and akin to Atari going from hardware company to shell of a software company. There's loads of potential in this move. It's very clever, and if it works out it'll give Sony a competitive edge going forwards where they just can't compete with ahrdware like they used to.
Explained House: "One area that I'm particularly excited about is the idea of asynchronous gaming, whereby the game experience is existing either on a PS3 or on your NGP, and then the 3G ability is the real-time, you know, 'you're under attack, you've got to go do something,' messaging, just keeping that link with you, which clearly is not very heavy in terms of data traffic, but creates a whole different sense to the experience."
From this link:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-27-sony-outlines-ngp-asynchronous-gaming
Live was talked about providing exactly that sort of thing before 360 hit the shelves. It's funny how these ideas take an age to get anywhere!
That's an interesting and surprisingly wise business move on SCE's end. It allows them to lure a lot of small developers to their platforms, while getting revenue from the PS Store games sold on Android-based platforms.
It's also interesting to note that this new platform is in line with the latest Sony/Google collaborations, like GoogleTV (if that's still alive..)
Yes, I wonder if we'll hear something official regards a Sony/Google partnership at some point? They sound like they're getting pal-y, but I don't suppose Google want to appear partisan so would have to tread careful with their choice of partnerships. It's certainly in Sony's best interests to combat MS's global software platform, and it's somewhat in Google's favour to have the old PS name and a solid hardware base and the large library of Sony content as the starting blocks to build a stronger network.
