14 DAY TRIAL // A developer working on Mortal Kombat at Netherrealm Studios has admitted to the fact that developers are experimenting with the PlayStation Portable 2 handheld from Sony and sounded impressed about the gaming capabilities of the device, which has not yet been officially announced by the hardware manufacturer.
Sean Himmerick, who is a producer working on the new Mortal Kombat video game, told Industry Gamers that, “We have a PSP2 in the house and we're looking at the engine, like what can it support. Always a big thing for us is the performance. We're running at 60 fps, what can we do and do we have to build all the art assets over. We're definitely looking at them.”
He sounded quite impressed when he added, “PSP2 looks like it's a pretty powerful machine.”
For some time various developers talked, a bit vague, about the PlayStation Portable 2 and about what it could bring to gaming.
Sony has long denied working on a new handheld but the company cannot keep its new hardware hidden from video game developers.
In order to make the PSP 2 a success when it is eventually launched it needs a strong video game line up and that can only be created if designers can experiment with the device, find out what it can do and what innovation it can support.
There have been a lot of rumors about the PlayStation Portable 2, including that it will double up as a phone and that it will offer a better graphics performance as a PlayStation 2.
Sony has not even confirmed that it is working on the device but it needs to do something to compensate for the falling fortunes of the PSP Go.
Any new handheld from Sony will need to be interesting enough to compete with the Nintendo 3DS, which has the unique selling point of offering full three dimensional gaming experiences without the use of any glasses.