Forget what you’ve heard about Japan getting the Sony's hotly anticipated NGP first - third party licensees insist that NGP will arrive in Europe this year, in fact they even predict a date of November 11th.
Sources told MCV that development deadlines have been set to ensure key Western games are to be finished before the end of the summer for deployment in the autumn.
Today’s leak even suggest the console will launch on Friday, November 11th. This would of course be the first ever world wide launch of any games console or portable.
When Sony first revealed the device in January boss Kaz Hirai said the launch would see NGP “begin rolling out this year” which was interpreted to be Japan first with the rest of the world to follow after.
The NGP is Sony's answer to Nintendo's new 3DS - it comes with a massive 5-inch 960×544 OLED touchscreen, a touch-sensitive back, dual analogue sticks, cameras front and back, a chip which Sony says is the most advanced available. Chuck in 3G, GPS and Wi-Fi and you're looking at a portable winner capable of taking on the 3DS, iPod Touch and even Apple’s iPad 2 .
The Sony NGP is to do away with the PSPgo's download-only approach, instead opting for UMD-replacing memory sticks.
Sony is going big on location-based games in a bid to challenge the iPhone and Android, with a sleek new 'Live Area' UI.
SCEA boss Jack Tretton moved quickly to calm those hopes saying that “it’s very difficult to have the quantities to be able to launch on a worldwide basis on the same date” and that “our goal is get at least one territory out by the end of holiday 2011”.
We’ll keep you posted on the planned launch of the new NGP over the next few months. One thing is for sure if it does get a worldwide launch there is almost certainly going to be massive shortages of what is labelled already as the must have gadget for Christmas 2011.