If all goes well, and Sony sticks to their scheduled announcement, we should get an official reveal for the PSP2 this week. That would finally end months and months of leaks, rumours and postulations. Until that time, however, two more details on Sony’s portable gaming machine have emerged.
According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the PSP2 will support a 3G connection, which would obviously make the handheld that much more portable. With 3G connection support, you’d be able to access downloads and the PSN via a cell phone network rather than relying on a wi-fi infrastructure for internet connectivity. For many, however, the added expense of 3G data transfer isn’t that appealing.
The second piece of information to emerge, however, has the potential to increase the handheld’s price by quite a bit.
The Nikkei has reported that the PSP2 will have an OLED screen. For those who aren’t aware: OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode and it’s essentially a type of screen display that relies on an organic compound to emit light, which in turn creates your picture. As an electric current passes through the organic compound, lights of varying colours are emitted.
There are pros and cons to OLED displays but because the application of electroluminescence is fairly new in commercially available technology, one of the cons is definitely price. However, the advantages that OLED brings make it a nice option for a handheld gaming platform. Response time (which prevents ghosting in moving pictures; something the very first PSP was prone to) is much greater in OLED. It’s also lightweight and has quite an efficient power consumption rate when showing picture with low amounts of white and higher amounts of blacks.
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage in OLED is its reliance on low ambient light for the picture to be clear. That means, assuming the PSP2 actually has an OLED display, using the device outdoors will prove to be an issue. Obviously this is a major drawback in a mobile gaming device, but it’s an issue that can be overcome with glare-reducing layers over the screen.
Sony’s announcement is scheduled for Thursday 27 January. We’ll know if the Nikkei was on the money then, but until such time take this with a healthy dose of “hmmm”.
Source: Kotaku
Last Updated: January 24, 2011
Aussious
January 24, 2011 at 15:28
We all know why the PSP GO bombed, so my question is will this thing use a physical medium to store game ala UMD…otherwise it will never take off.
Miklós Szecsei
January 24, 2011 at 15:45
Well it will supposedly use a physical medium.
Read this post that’s linked above in the “And in other news” section: “Rumour – Sony: the PSP2 is as powerful as the PlayStation 3”.
Rawr
January 24, 2011 at 19:25
This thing looks huge.
Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim
January 24, 2011 at 21:10
That’s what she said..(although, admittedly, not to me)