Game Designer Needs Performance Most Out of PlayStation Portable 2.

Square Enix: We Are Looking for Hardware Improvements in PSP2

[01/11/2011 11:49 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Square Enix, an influential game designer that has developed a number of exclusive titles for various Sony PlayStation platforms, said that the main thing it expects from Sony PlayStation Portable 2 (PSP 2) are improvements in performance of hardware and not unique features that potentially make development harder.

"There are a lot of things I am excited for the PSP2, but I am more interested in hardware specifics rather than a unique feature. Hardware is always coming out, so the software needs to be pushing the hardware as well. So, if they put something in that is very unique then it is hard to create games for it. As a creator, I am looking forward to mainly hardware improvements," said Takamasa Shiba, a producer at Square Enix, in an interview with VG247 web-site.

Late last year Kazuo Hirai, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment, expressed interest in touch-screen technology, which naturally inspired talks that the company may implement a touch-sensitive screen in the PSP2. A touch-screen can be considered as a unique advantage of the PlayStation Portable 2.

The only official information about the PSP2 is that it is in development and that some game developers already have prototypes. The PlayStation Portable 2 – or whatever its actual name is – is expected to be based on the Cell processors with four synergistic processing elements (SPEs), according to a report earlier this year. Back in late 2008 rumours transpired that Sony had licensed PowerVR graphics processor technologies for the next-gen PSP. According to other market rumours, PSP2 has two cameras, one forward and one backward facing, in addition, it has a touch-screen in addition to physical PlayStation buttons. Finally, according to the unofficial information, the device sports both 3G/3.5G and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Tags: Sony, PSP2, PSP, Playstation, Cell, Imagination, Imagination Technologies, PowerVR

Discussion

Comments currently: 2
Discussion started: 01/12/11 02:36:58 PM
Latest comment: 01/12/11 10:49:17 PM

[1-2]

The problem with Sony is that they seem to live in their own little world. I would not be surprised at all when the PSP2 does eventually show up that, instead of the features we are hoping for and expecting, that we'll all be saying "what in the world did they do that for?" .... again.

0 [Posted by: Astral Abyss Rating 44.34

| Date: 01/12/11 02:36:58 PM]

Reply

While I certainly agree AA (above) may be right, I'm slightly more hopeful about the possibilities.

A single-core Power7-like (4 SPE) processor would be pretty impressive. I hope it truly is something like that, running at ~2.4ghz (which is perfect for 28nm). That would be somewhere around half performance of a PS3 Cell. If combined with something like SGX545 running proportionally-fast on a 720p screen you've got something pretty impressive; a scaled-down half PS3 in your pocket, or something twice as fast as in your new smartphone. While not exactly meshing with phone/tablet CPUs (which obviously are all ARM), it would with graphics for the foreseeable future, and I'd prefer this setup for a stand-alone game system (doubling as a media player) because of their inherent threaded nature.

I think SONY will likely make this PSP similar to both the PS3 and a scaled-down PS4 (minus DX11 support) while keeping similar GPU programability to current and upcoming phones/tabs so small indy games and programs will run cross/inter-platform with little issue (as they are and will be programmed towards DX9-10/OpenGL3/OpenCL), and have a decent baseline to develop toward, even as phones catch up with it by the next process shrink (20nm). This setup would accomplish that...although I grant anyone that thinks this possibility too optimistic.