We all now by know how the PlayStation 3 saga played out. Though this current generation is far from over, the road ahead is bright for the PS3, unlike the first two years of the consoles life. When the PS3 was born, long before the E3 debut and Tokyo Game Show trailers, Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and then PlayStation 3 had one clear goal in mind. To create the most powerful and cutting edge machine that he possibly could. This meant offering features that many at the time would not be sure of like a Blu-ray player, 3D gaming and movies. Now of course, in retrospect, those have all been fantastic choices as Blu-ray is the definitive and ideal way to playback HD, 3D movies and 3D games. However, with Blu-ray, 3D, Bluetooth, Cell Processor and custom graphics cards, Sony paid a huge price for it. Not only did the PlayStation 3 come out a year later then the Xbox 360, it also cost a lot more which slowed the adoption rate and Sony was still losing $300 on each machine sold. This dug a big whole for the PlayStation division which was losing a massive amount of money, due to the high cost of the machine. Now nearly 5 years later, the PlayStation division is doing fine and is about to unveil more information for their second generation PSP at this years E3, codenamed the NGP.

So would Sony repeat the same trend that the PS3 set? Not so says Massaru Kato, Sony’s Chief Financial Officer when he spoke to the WSJ. The NGP will be less “investment heavy” and instead, rely on less custom GPUs and parts and more off the shelf products from partners. This means that Sony can turn to a manufacture who is already producing the parts they need in high volume and therefor, be able to get a lower price on the part, unlike the PlayStation 3’s cell processor for example which is being used exclusively in the PS3. Lower component costs for Sony will also translate to a lower product price for consumers, meaning that the NGP will be much more competitively priced to Nintendo’s recently released 3DS.

What do you think about the NGP and the price tag it will carry? Will it be PS3 expensive or something less? Let us know in the comments below.

[Via WSJ-Subscription Required]