First, the bad news. While Sony originally announced that the PlayStation Portable would ship worldwide at the end of 2004, the unit has been delayed in North America until early 2005. Speaking to CNN/Money, Sony spokesperson Teresa Weaver said, "The reason we pushed it out here is we wanted to be sure there's a reasonable amount of software titles to launch with the hardware." The Japanese release of the PSP is still slated for 2004, in time for the original 32-bit PlayStation's 10th anniversary.
Ah, but here's some good news to make the machine worth the wait: Sony's Fumiya Takeno told the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that the PSP will indeed feature PS2 connectivity. That is, games can be transferred between the two platforms, so you might be able to start a character on the PS2, then transfer the saved game to the PSP, and continue your game on the road. The hardware specs between the two systems feature several common elements, and early reports from developers suggest that PS2 code is very much at home on the PSP.
In fact, at March's Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, Sony unveiled the first PSP 3D action game, entitled Death Jr., in which players step into the shoes of the son of the Grim Reaper. The gameplay video showcased in the demo saw Death Jr. running, jumping, and shooting through a full 3D environment, highlighting graphics that (at least in the video) surpassed those of the Game Boy Advance and N-Gage. Chris Charla, senior producer of the title, praised the PSP, saying that "polygon for polygon, [the PSP] has more power than the PS2," and that the platform is easy to program. Sony's Andrew House also confirmed that, contrary to rumors, the PSP will feature 802.11b connectivity, enabling wireless LAN capability for mupltiplayer gaming.
Meanwhile, several "artists' conceptions" (that is, "fake pictures") of Nintendo's forthcoming DS system have surfaced, but at press times, Nintendo had not shown anything official; the real design will be revealed at E3. However, Nintendo certainly didn't plan to have specs for the system leaked to the Internet in mid-March. Revealing an internal code name of "Nitro" (not, Nintendo was willing to confirm, the products final name), the DS will use touch-screen technology in addition to conventional button inputs. The machine's main processor will run at 67 MHz, pack 4 MB of main memory, be able to generate a maximum of 120,000 polygons a second (or 30 million pixels a second), and, curiously, feature a microphone input. The DS will also apparently feature wireless networking on the 802.11 standard, which has been adopted by the PC networking industry.
This matches comments made by Nintendo President Storu Iwata in an interview with website Mainichi Interactive shortly before the DS was officially announced. In it, he said that the "innovative machine" will have a "short-range networking capability. It will introduce a refreshing new experience if it's played by one person alone, but we're hoping that it will be even more fun when it's played with multiple [people]."
Clearly, E3 should be very enlightening in regards to both machines. Check GamePro.com for constant news ans updates during the big show.
--- GamePro June 2004