Sony is going all out at E3 this year, turning their press Monday, June 6th press conference into a five-hour party. They're doing this for two reasons: One, to attempt to wipe out the bad memories of the PSN outages and two, to showcase and generate the necessary buzz for their new handheld console, currently known as the Sony NGP.

NGP stands for "Next Generation Portable" but it's not the final name of the device. We also know it won't take obvious name of "PSP2," but the latest rumors indicate that it may be called the Vita.

The Sony NGP was first announced back in January and we quickly gathered all of the available information at the time to put together a little NGP 'everything you need to know' guide. We have an idea of its power, having seen gameplay videos of Uncharted on it, and know that is has two joysticks (thankfully!) with added touch capability on the front and back of the unit. What we still don't know however, are the NGP's official name and retail price, both expected to be revealed a week tomorrow during Sony's E3 keynote presentation.

The rumor about the handheld's potential name originates from Games Pundit who received the information and images from an "anonymous" source - there's your first hint at the likeliness of its authenticity. They claim that other outlets know already but, unlike them, are keeping their lips sealed. According to them, it's called the Sony Vita and these are two images of where that can be seen:

[gallery columns="2" exclude="87009"]

Vita means "life" in Latin and its a believable name for the system.

Tech Corner soon jumped in to lend more credence to the rumors, uncovering that that same technical contact is listed for both the domains of psp.com and psvita.com, the first of which is administrated by Sony, and the latter of which shows the same administrative contact as its technical one - as in, it could simply be a placeholder for Sony. Then again, this is the first posting in over a month on the site.

It's interesting timing for this "leak" to occur with recent rumors also pointing towards a possible downgrade of the NGP tech to keep its price competitive with Nintendo's 3DS but it won't be long until we get the official announcements and confirmations. Here's the schedule for Sony's E3 conference on Monday, June 6th:

  • 3:30-5pm: Pre-show reception with world renowned DJs and LAs best food trucks including Empanadarama,Yappy Dog, Cheeseball Wagon, Komodo and more.
  • 5-6:30pm: Press Conference
  • 6:30-8pm: Enjoy hands on time with almost all of the press conference content on over 120 PS3 and NGP kiosks. Arcade to include special appearances and musical talent.
  • 8-9:30pm: Special performance

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Sources: Games Pundit, Tech Corner