A fair bit of warning: You just might ♥♥♥♥ your pants when you read about this beast's technical specs. The Sony NGP, or Next Generation Portable, is projected for release this holiday season for anywhere between $250 to $350 as an initial cost. It's not some crappy sequel like the PSP Go was; it's a masterpiece.

Some of its appealing specs:

• A 5 inch OLED touchscreen with one of the highest resolutions in the portable market
• Dual touchscreens- one in the front and one in the back- allow you to pull off some crazy touchscreenin'
• Wi-Fi and 3G are go
• Motion control
• Actual analog sticks, not the little nubbies that annoyed everyone who ever played the original PSP
• An Android platform known as PS Suite
• Connectivity to PlayStation Store
• Full backwards compatibility with PSP1 games
• UMD has been replaced with USB connectivity
• PS3 games can be ported to the NGP with ease: Demonstrations of popular titles such as Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Killzone 2 all reveal that the NGP has a seriously badass processor capable of running these titles at a smooth framerate

This is fudge amazing. Firstly, they fixed most of the nuances of the original PSP- primarily, those infuriating nubs that they called analog sticks- but they also introduced many new innovations, like the double-sided touchscreen, HD graphics, and most notably, the fact that popular PS3 titles can be ported to the NGP. It's not exactly a substitute- give a gamer the choice between a comfy couch and a 40" widescreen TV and a 5" touchscreen, and guess which he'll pick?- but it's arguably the best portable gaming console made thus far.

Sounds ♥♥♥♥ awesome.

*snort*
That sounds retarded, but aside from that, sounds pretty damn smexy.

The one on the back isn't as much a touch screen as it is a touchpad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5AkjLwqm6I Bad sound but you should be able to understand it.

Exactly. There's not two touchscreens as I erroneously stated, but one touchscreen on the front, and a touchpad on the back (with a nice aesthetic pattern of the face buttons/geometry buttons [Square/Circle/Triange/X]). The reason for that is the NGP is obviously bigger than most touchscreen phones, and you need to hold it with two hands, unlike with something like an iPhone, where you can use one hand to hold it and one to touch the screen. This way, you can use your thumbs and index fingers for touching the front screen and your pinkies and stuff for the back touchpad. I could see this being useful in games where you might have to touch a point on screen but you don't want to take your fingers off the main buttons- oheythar Mr. Pinkie.

Backside touch pad sounds like a gimmick, but otherwise pretty beast.
Way too expensive though, definitely a niche market.

How many times do you play a ds game only to not want to taker fingers off the control pad.

Considering I don't know of any game that I use both the control pad+buttons and touch screen in rapid succession, none.
The games that use both touch screen and other buttons are usually things like Metroid Prime: Hunters, in which you use one hand for buttons and the other for the touch screen.
There may be games that require rapid switching, but I don't know of them.

It's projected to be about the same as the new Nintendo 3DS. Possibly less.

Hell yes dude! I bought the original PSP for 3 benjamins (hundreds?) when it came out, I'm still using the thing right now. To wait 5 years and have the new model (TWO F*CKING JOYSTICKS, OLED, AND WIPEOUT HD AAAAAHHH) possibly 50 bucks cheaper is amazing. I thought it was starting at $500. Dude, we're getting a portable PS3 for the same dang price.

I am SO psyched for this, guess I'mma turn to crime for a while and save some cash.

And "projections" like that are BS, especially given the radical difference in capabilities. I'm not seeing the "NGP" (which is a pretty stupid name) being less than 300 bucks.

The touchscreen idea is actually pretty interesting, not sure who'll use it, but someone will come up with something cool, eventually.

Battery life is going to be terrible, even worse than the original PSP. Don't give me that bull♥♥♥♥, sonyfriends; it's going to be worse than the 3DS, guaranteed. It's also going to be an awful lot more fragile.

But it'll be interesting to see which one "wins" the battle this time. My money's on nintendo; it's got the wow factor, the strong name, and a host of other factors going for it.

But I do agree with a lot of people who say this will be the last generation of (dedicated) handhelds, ever.

In Australia, we have to pay like a hundred dollars more than you guys. So depending on how Sony does distribution, they might end up about the same price down here. I doubt it though.

3DS preoders are clocking in at £219 minimum right now, which is about $350 USD.

Also I'm getting one.

Say that to Brazil...
♥♥♥♥ here come as 5000$(that's the price of a ps3)
a NDS is roughly 700,i am scared of what price the 3ds is gonna be

Hahaha, Grif, you can eat your words - just announced at E3 that it'll retail at $300 with 3G/AT&T (♥♥♥♥ you) and $250 with just WiFi, which is what everyone is going to buy I'm sure.