ARM Community: NextGen portable gaming redefined by Sony PSP NGP with Cortex-A9 - ARM Community

On the heels of CES 2011, where ARM products were everywhere from handsets, smartphones, tablets, DTVs and STBs, as well as Microsoft’s announcement to support Windows on ARM , comes the latest announcement from Sony Computer Entertainment on its next generation portable entertainment system, codename NGP.

It uses a very high performance, energy efficient quad core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, at the heart of its main SOC. This will enable gamers to experience the same level of sophistication on the move as they have on larger machines in the home. Sony’s NGP enables gamers to continue their console-quality gaming anywhere, anytime, and not run out of battery while on the move.

See Wired.co.uk’s write-up and photos of the NGP here.

This latest device has raised the bar in portable gaming experience, and should create quite a stir among other portable devices. All good news for ARM technology which continues to innovate its roadmap to even higher performance energy efficient compute devices such as the Mali-T604 GPU and Cortex-A15.

This Sony announcement builds on the on-going momentum for the ARM architectures across next generation connected consumer devices where energy efficient high performance is a must, to enable compelling user experiences. ARM now increases its lead in the portable game device category, with this latest announcement. Nintendo has for a long time utilized ARM technologies in its DS, DSLite, and 3DS lines for portable gamers.

Sony also announced plans to bring "PlayStation quality" games to Android-powered mobile devices which will enhance the Android market place across a multitude of ARM powered connected devices smartphone and tablet devices.

This puts ARM in the number 1 position in portable gaming.

I can’t wait for Christmas and have already started to write my letter to Santa with Sony’s NGP top of my list.

Frank Kruszenski, Home CE Solutions, ARM, works in Silicon Valley. Like many of his ARM colleagues, whose exposure to future technologies offers a special perspective, Frank thinks the best times are about to come for home entertainment.