Sony North America President: Portable game consoles NGP Cancellation program

The PlayStation business unit will be forced to postpone the global launch of the next-generation portable gaming machine, a company executive said recently, affected by last month's earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. Jack Tretton, President of Sony North America, said the PSP, code-named "NGP", was likely to be launched only in parts of the year, rather than the previously announced sale in Asia, Europe or the United States at the end of Christmas holidays.　　But he declined to say where the game equipment would be listed in the first place. Tretton said the production problems caused by the disaster will force Sony to reconsider reducing the PlayStation sale area.　　The catastrophe of March 11, described by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as the country's biggest crisis since the Second World War, has killed or disappeared more than 27000 people and caused an estimated loss of up to 25 trillion yen (297 billion US dollars).　　In an interview last week, Tretton said the practice of listing only in one local market at the end of the year might not actually be significant, as delaying the release could give local game software companies enough time to develop software that competes with Sony. Sony executive vice president Hirai previously said that the 5-inch OLED high-resolution (960x544) screen, not only larger screen size, screen information volume is 4 times times the old PSP.　　In addition, NGP is equipped with a touch-screen and back touchpad, which will launch the Cross-platform content push service of the "PlayStation Suite", allowing Android users to have PlayStation gaming libraries and game software under the PlayStation certification system. Sony shares fell 1.2% to 2640 yen as the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed yesterday, and the company's share price has plunged 10% per cent this year. (Edit ss)