In the concluding part of our look at Next Generation PlayStation, Future Gamer ponders the surprising expandability of Sony’s new machine…
James Price

PlayStation 2 – or Next Generation PlayStation as it will henceforth be called until Sony tells us otherwise – is no longer a hybrid of expectation, heresay and a simple digit added to the name of an existing console.

Although firm launch and marketing details are unlikely to be released before the end of the summer, and much is still shrouded in secrecy, NGPS has a distinct, tangible form. Granted, it only exists for the average punter in the form of mind-blowing statistics and badly filmed demonstration software. But it’s nice to know where you stand, eh?

One of the key issues many observers were raising last week was the absence of a fixed online capability for NGPS. Future Gamer feels there is a simple explanation for this – one that Sony were keen to offer, were anyone to listen. The Next Generation PlayStation will arrive in Japan and, later, the West at a point where the Internet will be beginning one of its periodical generational leaps.

At present, experiments and developments are being made on a global scale. Their purpose? To perfect a faster, more reliable means of communicating across the Web. From cable modems to affordable ISDN, to actual trials for a technique that sees the Internet transmitted via a power line, your brand new external 56k will soon be horribly dated.

At least, that’s the plan. Actuality may not deliver the super-fast modem that Sony want, but they’re hanging on just in case. The inclusion of PCMCIA support will enable the Japanese manufacturer to include any new technology that arrives.

It’s likely that developers will also pressure Sony to include support for Net-based play against PC-based (and thus Dreamcast-based) opponents. An online game of Quake 4 in three years time could be an oddly harmonious mix of pad and mouse-holding competitors – a pleasing thought.

Although NGPS will offer visuals to rival many of today’s rendered sequences – at least, so it seems - there will of course be times when a developer wishes to use FMV. These movie sequences will be immeasurably enhanced by Sony’s inclusion of MPEG2 hardware decompression. In terms of image quality, you can’t get much better than that for current TVs.