— aka.spvn

UPDATE 1: Sony decided that “Hey! We don’t have enough multi-coloured PSPs already! Let’s introduce more!!!”

UPDATE 2: Stupid Sony’s still trying to revamp the hardware apparently. Read on here to find out how stupid I think Sony is for doing this.

When the first generation PSP was first announced in 2003 and released in Japan in December of 2004, it seemed to be a gaming console sent from heaven. With hardware capable of pumping out almost PS2 quality graphics, wifi capability and hence support for online play, an in built browser, video player, music player, etc. And best of all, it was but a handheld console. With such wonderous statistics, it was no wonder the console’s launch in every region in the world was such a huge success, selling around 200,000 units on the very first day in many regions. Alas, as with so many other things, what sounds astounding on paper doesn’t translate into an astounding device.

PSP Picks Up Steam

In fact, the PSP had some relatively good launch titles, for example Ridge Racer, Dynasty Warriors, Lumines (which still remains one of my

• Ridge Racer – A really fun and addictive arcade racer
• Dynasty Warriors – For pure button mashing fun
• Lumines – A puzzle game that debut as an unassuming PSP launch title, but still remains one of my favourite puzzle games of all time, not to mention it’s been ported to mobile phones, PS2 and the PC as well.
• Need for Speed: Underground – A Need for Speed game as a launch title, need I say more?
• NFL Street 2 Unleashed – A relatively fun “arcade” version of more traditional football games
• Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix

Most other regular consoles get launch titles of regular game consoles usually consist of current games ported to the console in question, plus a few more extra “crapware” games. The PSP though had an arguably strong launch lineup, because of the simple fact that it was almost impossible for developers to directly port games over to the PSP since it had a lot less horsepower. Despite that, many of the launch title games were pretty fun, especially when you consider how they’re meant for a handheld device and thus short bursts of arcady fun.

In the period of time after the release of the console, the PSP did seem to pick up some steam in terms of games. For example SOCOM was introduced into the PSP game library, offering a thus far unrivalled online shooter experience, for it allowed large groups of players to connect to an online game and play together. I personally loved the idea and played quite a bit of SOCOM online, because it did almost feel like one was playing any other online shooter, except this was on a handheld device. Still, being a relatively new game in the PSP library, it had its flaws, but seemed like an optimistic sign of what was to come for the PSP.

It Starts To Go Wrong

Then there were games like Syphon Filter, Wipeout, Coded Arms, Fifa games, Grand Theft Auto, Star Wars Battlefront, etc. The more “mainstream” games if you could call them that. Games that hardcore gamers would recognise, or would be interested in, those with 3D graphics and the ones that were supposed to deliver “near PS2 quality” graphics. Unfortunately, it was about this time that the flaws in the PSP became more an more apparent. It seemed the PSP simply wasn’t designed to play certain types of games well. For example, first person shooters were out of the question with the PSP’s single analog stick; third person games seemed likely, but the level of detail in the PSP’s graphics simply made them unplayable, especially with the dim screen; sports games were simply just ports of its console brethrens except with worse graphics and lacking features; strategy games were almost non-existant. The only games it seeemd to work well with were racing games (which get boring quickly especially when there are so many different versions of racing games out there), RPGs (of which good ones were far and few in between) and puzzle games (of which good ones are possible to develop for almost any kind of platform).

From then on, most of the PSP games that were released were of pretty low quality, and others seemed to be half hearted ports of the original ones. That’s not to say it didn’t have its bright moments, unfortunately most of them were just overlooked. Few people have experienced the thrill of riding down a mountain in the PSP’s version of SSX, or figured out one of “Exit’s” many puzzles (when I have to put a game’s name in quotes just to make sure people know it’s a game, that goes to show how overlooked some of these games were), watch one of Jeanne d’Arc’s captivating cutscenes or experience its story as well, or simply having loads of fun with LocoRoco. The PSP ports of the Lego games were probably the only games that were almost identical to their console counterparts, and they were pretty good as well, except that on a small screen, everything looks worse.

Then 2008 came…

In fact, 2008 was probably the best year the PSP had, and that’s saying something (which I’ll get on to in just awhile). It had plenty (in relative to previous years) quality titles.

• N+ – A brilliant puzzle/platformer that everyone simply has to play
• Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core – A high quality RPG in a class of its own, not to mention a PSP exclusive game as well
• God of War: Chains of Olympus – Another really high quality game, and its a God of War game to boot, yet another platform exclusive game
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – I’d go so far so as to say that the PSP version was probably better than the XBOX360/PS3 version, taking into account that it’s on a handheld console
• Lego Batman: The Video Game – As I already mentioned, a Lego game
• Madden NFL ’09 – Another pretty decent port
• Patapon – It was released in December of ’07, but only gained popularity in ’08
• Pro Evolution Soccer – A much better soccer game on the PSP as compared to Fifa.

Sounds pretty good right? Though there were pretty fun games for the PSP in previous years, they were never of such high quality before. The PSP was beginning to look like a console that was full of potential.

Then suddenly, the games just stopped coming.

People say that summer is the prime time of movies, in that case, the holiday season is definitely the prime time for video games. Every holiday season (or at least the second half of the year), the major triple-A titles are hurriedly pushed through the door for all platforms. The PS3 got games like Resistance 2 and Little Big Planet, the Xbox 360 got Gears of War 2 and Fable 2. What did the PSP get? Zilch. Not a single game really worth playing. Except for games like Star Wars: TFU and N+, the PSP didn’t have much to offer this holiday season.

The Great PSP Game Drought

I’ve stopped bothering about my PSP for a long time now, there simply isn’t much to play anymore. It seems like developers have completely given up on the console, or at least have given up trying to produce quality games for the PSP. That’s probably a wise business decision.

In the handheld console market now, there are really only 2 competitors, the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS Lite, and the PSP is just getting completely beaten, trashed, owned, etc by the Nintendo DS because the DS caters to a wider audience. Thus it only makes sense that developers would turn their attention to other consoles.

What results is a maddening drought of games for the PSP. With so few developers left who have any faith in the PSP at all, we don’t even see the usual flow of “crapware” games for the PSP, all those games have gone to the DS as well, where even crapware games are able to fly off shelves as long as they’re about Barbie Princess or Spongebob. Most might say it’s a good thing there are so few low quality games, but the problem is that there are hardly any games worth playing now at all.

And it’s not just developers who are shying away from the PSP, critics aren’t responding favourably towards the PSP either. Since God of War, Final Fantasy and Star Wars, little to no hype has been generated for any other PSP game in recent times. Critics start up a PSP game expecting it to be lousy, and it obviously reflects in their scores because they rated a game based on the overall experience, which is never as good on a PSP as compared to other consoles. This meant that any game that got a 6 or 7 out of 10 was probably a pretty good game for the PSP already. The low scores for PSP games in general were partly responsible for driving potential PSP owners away from the device.

In fact, the Gamespot list of top 10 PSP games at the time of this writing is quite interesting (this list is generated based on how many times readers view news or anything related to a game in that day). Out of the 10 games, only 3 were released in recent times (after June 2008), 2 of them are yet to be released, while half of the list are relatively older games. That’s a stark difference as compared to other consoles, where all the games in the list are either relatively new games or ones that are still yet to be released. This goes to show how few games there are on the PSP that are worth playing at all. Oh and not to mention there are still PSP games from as far back as September that are still yet to be reviewed on Gamespot. And I’m not talking about games that no one cares about here, I’m talking about games like WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, Lego Batman and Need for Speed Undercover. Yeah, all these triple-A titles have been pushed aside and it doesn’t seem like they’re ever going to be reviewed, because of the simple fact that they all belong on the PSP.

Just consider, the only 2 PSP exclusive games that receieved critical acclaim across the board that were released this year are Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus. The Final Fantasy series has always been a staple of Playstation consoles, developed by Square Enix. As for God of War? It was developed by Sony themselves, for their own console. When only Square Enix and Sony themselves are willing to invest time to develop quality PSP games while everyone else is shying away from the platform just 3 years after the device was introduced and even after 2 updates to the hardware, you know your console’s in trouble. And Sony knew that.

The BIG Solution

Sony’s answer to this problem? “Since the reason why it’s doing so badly is because of hardware sales, let’s introduce NEW hardware… AGAIN!” Hence, the birth of the PSP-3000, which besides a brighter screen and an in-built microphone, didn’t introduce much significant changes. Note, this is already the third generation PSP in just 3-4 years, in comparison, Nintendo only introduced a single reiteration of its original DS, the DS Lite, in 2006, and it’s still selling like hotcakes up till this day. Along with the new hardware, Sony introduced new features such as the PSN store which allowed users to download games off the internet onto their PSP.

My question to Sony is… What’s the point? What’s the point of introducing a new PSP just one year after the previous generation of PSPs when there’re still no games to play on it? What’s the point of having a microphone when people view a PSP as being a gaming device more than anything else? What’s the point of the online store when most of the games are still only available in physical form and like I said before, most aren’t worth playing anyway?

Did they really think a new console would help boost sales? Well sure, sale figures of the console did increase in the week the PSP 3000 was introduced, but the week after that, the figures immediately went back down to previous levels, and stayed there till the holiday season when all other consoles got an increase in number of units sold. In fact, both the PSP and the DS reached their peak in the same week (21st December 2008) and the DS sold three times the number of units the PSP sold, moving around 1.8 million units as compared to the PSP’s 600,000 or so.

So… What now?

The answer to the PSP’s sorry state is so painfully obvious: Sony needs to attract more quality developers to the platform instead of trying to sell as many units as possible. If they continue trying to chase after the consumer with more hardware and software improvements, the PSP is going to die out faster than you can say “PSP-4000″  or “4th generation PSP”. As long as quality games start arriving for the PSP, consumers will tag along. Maybe, just maybe, Sony can revitalise the PSP.

However, no matter what they do, it might be too little to late. At the end of the 2008 holiday season and as we enter the new year, the DS holds 70% of the market share, with around 97 million units sold thus far. The PSP on the other hand has only sold around 43 million, holding just a third of the market. Furthermore, the PSP has always been known for shoddy games, and that legacy might be passed down to every other PSP game that’s going to come out. It’s the reason why so many quality PSP games like Jeanne D’Arc were overlooked over the years. With dwindling unit sales as well, there’s really little incentive for developers to start a quality game from scratch exclusively for this platform.

Sony better come up with a stroke of genius soon, maybe something like distributing a SDK that makes developing for the PSP even more easier or something like that (I’m no programmer, just taking a wild stab in the dark here). Regardless, whatever they do, they’d better do it well, and soon. And I mean really soon, before the PSP drowns among all the DS Lites.

Oh and then there’s still that teeny tiny problem of the DSi…