Tekken 6, Soul Calibur Coming To the PSP 32
Two recent announcements lend support Sony's promise to bring a stronger game lineup to its PSP console this year. Tekken 6, which was already known to be in development for the 360 and PS3, has now been confirmed for the PSP as well. "... the portable version of the game is set to release alongside the other console iterations and will pack additional stages, content, items, and an ad-hoc multiplayer mode using 'original' and 'fan favorite characters.'" We've also found out that Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny is being specifically designed for the PSP, and will include "arcade, versus, and survival modes, as well as a character creation mode." In addition, 1Up reports on the latest rumors surrounding a redesigned PSP (possibly called the "Go!"), which they say will be unveiled later this year at E3.
The games seen on PSP always seem odd (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't own a PSP or a DS, but I do play games on portable devices. It seems that the most suitable games are really either the ones that take only a few minutes such as you might have on a bus ride and can be abandoned at any time, or ongoing games which can be paused and resumed without the temporal disconnect being too difficult.
The first category might be similar to the kinds of Flash games people play online, or to puzzle challenge games like Audiosurf (I'd love a portable version of this game!). It seems that this type of game should be avaialable in vast quantities - consider the iPhone App Store for an example - but I'm not sure they're commercially viable on a handheld that is expensive to develop for.
The second category suggests RPGs or even point-and-click adventures (Myst would have been fun on a portable), or turn-based strategy. The world should be relatively static while you're idle, and it should be possible to stop from any given point pretty easily. Many of the DS games I've seen seem to be of this category.
So... why is it that so many of the PSP games seem to be straight-up ports of traditional console games, meant to be played for hours (or at least 30 minutes) at a time, and to pack as much excitement as possible into that time? I realize designing a successful game is difficult (and once you've done it, you want to put it on as many platforms as you can), but surely a portable game that naturally takes a break every few minutes (and can be freely abandoned even between breaks), or that can be paused and resumed at any time without needing to remember exactly what you were doing right before, would be best? It seems odd that portable games so rarely give the impression of having been designed for portable gaming.
Fighting games kind of fit the first category, so long as the fights are REALLY short or you can drop out in the middle of a fight and do it later without penalty. Same for racing games. Sports games don't seem to fit well - too much stuff to do over the course of a period too long for one sitting, all of which builds on stuff before it. RPGs consisting of a lot of real-time action don't either. Real-time strategy games certainly don't (although they're rare on consoles anyhow). Things like Pokemon and Legend of Zelda games do make sense, but they don't seem to be the kind of thing you see for PSP.