Kaz Hirai on the NGP

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Kaz Hirai on the NGP

The day we announced the Next Generation Portable, or NGP, was quite an eventful one. You might have followed the live blog, read the message on the Blog from SCEA CEO Jack Tretton, seen the topics trending on Twitter (6 out of 10 worldwide at one point!), or read the hands-on impressions.

At the very end of the day, I had a chance to catch up with Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. While I knew I’d be unable to gather any more details than what was announced earlier in the day, I was curious about the broader aspects of the news: Why announce NGP now? Where does it fit into the PlayStation console life cycle philosophy? How did publishing partners like Epic Games and Activision get involved in the announcement? I hope you enjoy hearing these answers in detail directly from Mr. Hirai.

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143 Comments

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  • Saw this on the SCEAblog Youtube earlier.

  • Day 1 buy Kaz!

  • I just need a price point now :D.. or at least I need to know it won’t be $300

  • Is NGP still just a code name or is it official?

  • it will be over $300 people,what did you expect? ipads and tablets are more expensive and they offer you shiiit

  • so kaz.. There will be no RIIIIIIIIID RAAAAAACER this time? :(

  • Kaz speaks English?

    Love you man, NGP DAY ONE!!!!!

  • i hope they call it next generation playstation portable=ngpsp

  • the device looks pretty good! but again i’m gonna wait to see how it really pans out with respect of pricing and software.also,i couldnt understand what he was saying in this interview because the volume was too low?

  • It’s going to be a very interesting E3 this year.

  • Just give me a release date and retail price and I am more than sold. In other words, gimme mah PSP2!

  • You get to talk with the Kaz man himself and you wear plaid?? Come on Jeff, don’t you have a nice dress shirt or something? Just kiddin! haha cool interview!

  • im extremely excited about NGP , i hope sony manage to price it right to make the system very competitive on the market , i know it has a lot of new technology on it and the specs are really something but price is everything in the world we live in nowadays , ps3 is a perfect living example of that , dont make the same mistake twice .

    Jeff is the friends app the same friends list on our PS3s? what about Trophies ? are they gonna mix together with the ps3 ones ? , does the system have speakers ? how 3G is gonna work ? who will be providing the service in the US ? are Killzone and Resistance part of the launch line up ? is the system coming this holidays to the US ? does it have a better web browser ? man i cant wait to have 1 on my hands

  • Week 1 buy for me SONY, 1 love and God Bless. Thanks so much for the interview and always keeping us commited PS gamers in the loop.

  • That was a decent interview Jeff. Thank you for the hard work. I only felt that it was decent because, you didn’t ask some of the main questions that the majority are contemplating.

    1. Price
    2. Battery Life
    3. How is 3G/4G will be handled? Free?
    4. Why no 3D support? Sony is big on pushing $3,000 3D HDTVs.
    5. When can we expect an actual NGP name announcement?

    • As I said in the preceding paragraph, I know there are certain things not revealed on unveil day, like questions 1-5. In time, your questions will be answered.

  • Hey Jeff,

    Question you should ask is if it will be able to do Hulu/Netflix on it.

  • The big questions for me:
    1. Price
    2. Extensible Storage media (MicroSD?)
    3. Internal Storage
    4. Mini-HDMI OUT (please say yes, no next gen portable should be without this)
    5. OS UI details (XMB Mode? or at least something more customizable than what I’ve seen that isn’t ugly and poorly organized. Look to android and innovate please)
    6. Square Enix projects

  • very excited by this. I love my ipad too btw…worth 475$…but hop this is under $300. At a 250$ I think it will do well up against the 3ds in terms of sales. $300 seems most likely though.

  • Hopefully it doesn’t set me back $400.00

  • Awesome vid Jeff. I really like what i see with the NGP. the software seems there, the hardware is DEFINITELY there. Now i just have to see if the price is there ;)

    How come they went with the PSP 1000/3000 look instead of the PSPgo sliding screen look?

  • I hope there will be an app store, because this is a versatile and there is much more to do besides gaming.

    Oh yes…

    1.price
    2.battery life

    Main reasons for the decision to buy or not the FIRST model (until a “slim” version comes out).

  • EXCELLENT video. The system looks top notch. I hope it has WPA-Enterprise wireless internet support like the iPod Touch does. It will be a no-buy if it doesn’t have proper support for that kind of thing.

  • Day one buy! I’m saving money now, cause whatever the cost, I’m going to want a ton of games to go with it. CAN’T WAIT!

  • @ Zezzler: The analog the NGP has wouldn’t be able to be done on a PSPgo sliding look.

  • I want a price point. We can assume that the release date will be around November of this year. I purchased my PSP Go, but now that I hear they have backwards compatibility with PSN titles, I am sold. I really want to know if it has built in memory though.

    Also, Kaz Hirai speaks some incredible English. He seems very well spoken.

  • Of the 3 Execs, it looked like Jack hadn’t slept in days.

  • This is the first handheld I have been so hyped about. Looking forward to E3.

  • Day ONE purchase. I’m getting at least 3. One for me, my brother, and sister. 3G Versions ;)

  • Forgot…
    1. The most expensive iPod Touch with Wi-Fi + 64GB is $399.00
    2. The cheapest iPad with Wi-Fi + 16GB is $499.00
    -Separately, these products have sold millions of units.
    -iPod Touch units sold to date, roughly over 13 million
    -iPad units sold to date, roughly over 17 million

  • Kaz FTW!

  • Hey Jeff. I was online during the Playstation Meeting when Kaz was announcing the NGP. I’m glad you didn’t decide to drop physical media from your portable lineup. I know that the NGP has a lot more exciting features than this but I like the fact that games will be on Flash Cards. I’m hoping as a result that this will improve the battery life since we no longer need the laser and motor to run UMDs. Just the fact that Uncharted was running on a portable was amazing in itself. It may not have 3D but the NGP has got to be the most feature packed portable I have seen to date. Dual Touch Pads, Dual Analogs, Trophies, 3G, WiFi, Six Axis and more, this system is definitely a day one purchase for me.

    Question: Since the NGP is capable of playing PS3 style games, are there any plans to make the NGP compatible with PSN titles like Dead Nation, Rocket Knight, Trine, Castle Crashers etc…? Its great that we can already play digital PSP, PSOne and Minis on the system but it would be incredible if we could bring the entire PSN experience with us on the go.

    • Again, too soon to answer these types of questions. Well before you have the chance to purchase one, we’ll have all the details you’re looking fore.

  • Interviewing the big bossman.

    Weren’t nervous were you, Jeff? ^_^

  • I can’t wait to get my hands on this. Holiday 2011 can’t come soon enough.

  • SOLD, SOLD, AND SOLD, did I mention it’s SOLD!!! 8P 8)

  • Price and Battery Life. Im hoping that its affordable this time compared to the PSP when it launched in at $250 compared to the DS which launched at $150. I know that it will be more expensive that the 3DS, but im hoping that the difference is $50 or at least match that competition’s price point.

  • @ TakiFuGu: The reason he didn’t ask those questions is because he knew Kaz wasn’t going to answer them. Great interview, Jeff!

  • oh yea since the NGP is capable of playing ps3 games i want :
    Heavenly Sword : Resurrection PS3/NGP
    after years of being death for using the sword she swore to protect with her life , nariko is granted with a new opportunity to defend the same sword she once protected from evil , play as Nariko in this ground breaking new adventure , a new way to play games on your home console and your portable console , coming exclusively to PS3/NGP
    thank you lol

  • You guys are going to have a hard time selling that 3G NGP up here in Canada. We have to pay like $30/month for 1gb of data up here on mobile networks.

    Even if you negociate special terms with some providers where PSN usage doesn’t count against your data cap, You still can’t do anything about the Canadian service providers gouging us like crazy.

  • Well you could donate a crap load of money to openmedia.ca, that would be nice.

  • NGP doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it looks great. I’m glad I was a late comer to PSP, got the Go and all my games are downloaded from the PS Store, so the should work on the NGP. Hopefully we’ll see more of the PSP back catalog get put on the store too (looking at you Square-Enix).

  • Great Job Jeff, i cant wait to get ahold of one. Just need to know how much im going to be spending on the day of its release.

  • @ krae_man: Protest, just be sure theres a large number of you outside where ever your protesting, or else you might look silly, all alone, freezing.

  • @NESGamepro

    Or the PSP back catalog coming out on the flash cards would be good too. Sorry for the double post, I can’t edit here.

  • Hope these joysticks won’t get stuck like the PS3 one (since it’s not like we can buy a new NGP when it does get stuck)… But still, this is going to kill 3DS before it’s even released!

  • Kaz should make a blog post on his own here. Its his home.

  • Looks great, nice work everyone at Sony! I’m not huge into handhelds, but this does have me interested.

  • When it comes to gaming, Sony never fails to impress me. Can’t wait for the NGP!

  • I hope they release a model that doesn’t have 3G, and GPS.
    I don’t want those features. If they want to compete, they need to keep the price low, multiple SKUs is the best way.

  • im buying this first day! :D

  • very nice now they need to drop a price hint on us

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