Evening Reading

Now that the specs for the upcoming crop of next-gen handheld gaming devices from Nintendo and Sony have been revealed, there's a lot to be potentially excited about. I must confess, even having never been much for portable gaming myself, the tech is very exciting.

Bells and whistles aside, the one thing that could potentially sour my enthusiasm is cost. Pricing is still unknown for Sony's Next Generation Portable (NGP), though it'll likely be more expensive than Nintendo's 3DS, which is expected to retail for $250. That gives me pause, because as cool as the technology seems, I'm not sure I'm ready to pay roughly the same amount for portable gaming (hardware and software) than I do to play on the PC, Xbox 360, or PS3. In NGP's case, if it's just a matter of bringing PC and console-quality experiences to smaller platform, I expect I'd still gravitate to play the version I can experience on my TV, where I can get 10x the screen real-estate.

In other words, I'm cautiously optimistic, with a dash of wallet-panic.