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PlayStation (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Sony Confirms 59 In-Development Japanese Titles for PSP 40

Posted by CowboyNeal from the wide-selections dept.
roadies writes "As tangentially mentioned a day or two back, Sony has confirmed 59 PSP titles currently in Japanese development, with many likely to make the Japanese launch of the handheld. Depending on how many debut at hardware release, this may make other handheld system launches pale in comparison, at least compared to the U.S.: the GBA had 15 titles, N-Gage only had 6 titles, and the cult favorite Neo Geo Pocket Color had around 10 launch titles. This is interesting in light of rumors that PSP dev kits haven't been widely released." Which of the games on the current list actually excite you?
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Sony Confirms 59 In-Development Japanese Titles for PSP More

Sony Confirms 59 In-Development Japanese Titles for PSP

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  • Hey, hey! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by focitrixilous P ( 690813 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @06:56PM (#9712526) Journal
    the GBA had 15 titles,

    Along with the fully compatable line of several hundred GB and GBC games. That's the power of having near 100% marketshare due to lack of competition. That is a huge advantage for every backwards compatable GameBoy system, no matter how few new games it has at launch. You can buy GB / GBC games which are still entertaining for 10 bucks off ebay or a used game store. Used PSP games will run 40 at best for months after launch, while the DS has a million games, including late GBA titles.

    • Re:Hey, hey! (Score:5, Funny)

      by feyhunde ( 700477 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:04PM (#9712576)
      They have such games as Mahjong Fighting Club and "To be determined"! How can they not lose!
    • The GBA's backwards compatibility wasn't much of a factor at launch, since most people who bought the GBA that early already had a GBC. The PS2 was the same way, which is why Sony went ahead and redesigned the PSX into the PS1 and sold it at the same time. It's not until a system becomes cheap enough to appeal to casual gamers that backwards compatibility becomes a big advantage.

      Rob
      • ... or not...
        I bought a GBA because of GB/GBC compatability very near launch. Never owned a GB.
        I bought a PS2 because of PS1 compatability a bit after launch - my PSX had been dead for 2 years.

        Those got me as a customer because of that. Obviously I wouldn't be the only one.

    • Re:Hey, hey! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nsda's_deviant ( 602648 )
      I think your right, while GBA launch games were pseudo-remakes of original Nintendo releases the PSP list points to lots of games that are out so lets put it in portable games. I'm excited as hell for Gran Turismo 4 but will I need it on portable? We'll see. How different and original is Tiger Woods, Dynasty Warriors, Need for Speed Underground going to be from their PS2 counterparts? The 59 figure is a bit inflate in my book, 3-4 different mah-jong games? Lots of other board games for a 300 dollar multimed
    • The GBA frankly has a tiny screen, the GB was impossible to see. They where cheap and cheerfull so kids got them and adults played with them BUT there also wasn't really anything else out there. Sure others tried but they got multiple things wrong, idiotic battery life, gigantic size, small library of games, limited availabitlty.

      The PSP next to the DS however shows the PSP as having a far far far far superior screen. Will that matter? Well yes. IF sony can avoid the mistake of the "also ran" portables. Can

      • I think you're placing a bit too much importance on the screen. Several of the competition's portables have had better screens, like the Game Gear and the Nomad. However, these all seem to have been beaten by the GB with a blurry black-and-white screen.
        • The Game Gear and Nomad both had a big problem - there lovely nice backlit screen drained six AA batteries in a matter of hours (I think the Lynx had a similar problem). The SP gets away with it because it has a built in rechargeable battery instead of using replaceable. But other systems used reflective screens, and got far better performance out of a couple of AAs. One of the things people are worrying about with the PSP is a lack of battery life (from the screen, and the disc drive), even though it also
          • Actually, the SP gets away with it because it uses a frontlight with a reflective screen, same as a regular GBA with an Afterburner. This technology uses far less energy than a backlit screen, which is why leaving it on still gives you more than half the battery time you get when you turn it off.
          • Well they also suffered from other issues. MULTIPLE issues. Like say me never having seen them in shops (except the lynx ages ago). Matters since you can't buy things not being sold.

            But as I said battery life is going to be important. Hopefully sony will realise this.

            I do have some hopes however. Lets not forget that sony knows about portables. It created more battery operated gizmo's then nintendo has games. Unless they are completly screwing it up I think that the battery life is not going to be as insa

        • I think you're placing a bit too much importance on the screen. Several of the competition's portables have had better screens, like the Game Gear and the Nomad.

          In both of those cases, it didn't matter how wonderful the screen was, because there weren't enough good games to play on them. The sheer number of games available for the GB killed both of those systems. However, Nintendo now has a bad history of dealing with third-party developers... something that Sony has been extremely good at.

          I'm afraid
  • In the 16bit genesis days I remember how important first generation games were. Now it's alot less important with people usually waiting a year before they buy a system at price drop.

    People are also 10x more alert and careful with what the buy given all this internet info available too.

  • WTF?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:29PM (#9712722)
    No Solitaire? Screw that! This platform will be DOA. :)

  • That number will come down for the launch (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bloomy ( 714535 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:38PM (#9712764)
    Here's another IGN story [ign.com] from December 2000 that said around 22 games would launch with the GBA in Japan. And Majesco [ign.com] said they would have 7 games for the American launch. The IGN list above has been whittled down to 3 Majesco titles. If you follow some of the links from the IGN's GBA list, some missed the launch, and they don't have Castlevania : Circle of the Moon, which did make the launch.

  • Looks wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @07:52PM (#9712830) Homepage Journal
    Going by the games on this list it looks very wrong. Not that its untrue, but it seems like they are trying to simply make another Playstation, only small enough to carry around with you. Different gaming platforms require different games. Sure, some types of games work well in different departments. Fighting games work well in arcades and on consoles. Turn based strategy games work well just about anywhere.

    But going by this list it seems like a bunch of sequels for existing playstation games. None of these games stand out as portable games. If you look at the GBA you get games like Advance Wars and Pokemon. These are portable games. They just wouldn't work out too well on consoles or pcs. Pokemon are something you carry around with you and battle your friends with. Advance Wars is the ultimate penis size measurer on long road trips. These PSP titles seem to me like they are reruns of popular 1 player Playstation games.

    The PSP seems to me like its going to be a console you can take with you as opposed to a portable gaming platform. The game gear lost to the game boy for the same reason. It was sonic the hedgehog in full color versus Tetris in spinach green. We know who won.

    • Portable != only slow games (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DeadScreenSky ( 666442 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @11:17PM (#9713745)
      Uhhh FYI, Advance Wars is just a 'rerun' of a long-running console series, starting way back on the Famicom. It saw sequels on both Super Famicom and the original Gameboy. I am not sure how it happened, but other consoles also saw very similar games, like the classic Military Madness series on the PC Engine.

      One of the reasons genres like turn-based strategy games work so well on previous portable systems (such as the GBA) is because the portables simply weren't up to doing many other genres. The controls of a GBA, in both number of buttons and movement method (smallish D-pad), just aren't very good for modern 3D racing games, 3D action games, fighting games, etc. The small low-resolution (i.e. less than a television) screen is also a factor.

      IMO, that is the most exciting 'feature' of the PSP - we have here a portable that can handle stuff like 'real' racing and 'real' action games now, something that has been missing in the portable space for many years. The PSP has more than enough buttons (same as or more than a SNES, yes?). It has a very clear screen that is also an excellent size. It has analog control, which is the real big deal versus the DS. I will take real analog over a stylus almost any day of the week, and I am not remotely alone - who wants to play a Mario64 or MarioKart64 port with no analog control? Would I rather 'suffer' through a portable FPS game with some analog control (a la Goldeneye) or with a stylus that makes my 24-year-old male hand block the screen (a la no successful game I have ever heard of)?

      Even better, most of these features make the PSP more suited for stuff like turn-based strategy games. Especially the better screen.

      Obviously Sony could screw up the PSP (price and battery-life are important, if less crucial than many Nintendo fans claim). I am hardly a Sony fanboy (they piss me off far more often than not), but the PSP has a real shot at finally allowing some real genre variety again in the portable videogaming market. Just because Nintendo has traditionally chosen to make a cheaper and less capable portable system doesn't mean all portables have to be like that!

      (As a historical aside, the original Gameboy had tons of quality action games and the like that you just don't see on its GBA successor. You had a good Metal Gear Solid game for example. Whether the GBA is missing these types of games because of the consoles moving to more advanced [i.e. 3D] versions of these genres, or the fact that apparently 90% of the GBA market is little kids who want franchised games or sequels is a question yet to be answered. I suspect the PSP might answer it, though...)

    • It was sonic the hedgehog in full color versus Tetris in spinach green. We know who won.

      Yeah, Nintendo never got over that.

      I'm just prayin' for a Ratchet and Clank 2D scroller!

  • Sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Thursday July 15, 2004 @08:01PM (#9712872) Journal
    And the Playstation 2 will have "Toy Story quality graphics".

    If you're still taking Sony at its word, you're a chump. (Everybody does it, Sony is just annoying because it has somehow conned a large number of fan-boys into believing every word.)
  • PSP launches with 59 games...in Japan.

    But seriously, I doubt there will be more than 2 or 3 that are even worth a damn. Look at the Game cube or GBA launch. The only launch title I liked for the GC was Pikmen, and I had to rely on my GB/GBC library to hold me over until some good GBA games were released.
  • Words of wisdom : Quality over quantity thats why im getting a DS
  • Hold onto your hats because we have a run down of the PSP games that are being released alongside the handheld wonder in Japan. We stress that these are only confirmed for a Japanese release and as yet there isn't a confirmed list for Europe.

    News for only the Japanese launch, from a European website. Given Sony's track record of not many games never ever leave Japanese shores (Super Robot Wars anyone?), this probably equates to about 20 games for the European and US launch dates.

    • I figure super-niche titles like Super Robot Wars can easily be replaced by content from Western producers for the American and European releases, which usually lag by about six months or so. I could see the list cutting back to 40 games or so, but 20 strikes me lower than Sony would probably want.

      Me? I'll probably just import a PSP along with the new Super Robot Wars when it comes out, since the Sony-console SRWs have always been my favorites. However, the only "modern" platform I've passed on the SRWs fo

  • Apples-to-oranges comparison (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scot4875 ( 542869 ) on Friday July 16, 2004 @01:13AM (#9714166) Homepage
    Comparing the number of games in development vs. the number of games available at launch is meaningless.

    So the GBA had 15 titles at launch -- does anyone honestly believe that there weren't already dozens more already in development? Or are we to believe that developers were taking a 'wait and see' approach, and only started new projects *after* the release of the GBA.

    Sony loves to play these numbers games. 66 million polygons/second! (with no game simulation running) ... (or any lighting) ... (or textures) ... (and they must be rendered as a single triangle strip). What amazes me is that anyone still listens to them.

    --Jeremy
  • not a one, since I've no intention on paying $300 for a PSP.
  • I hate to admit it, but being the ravenous fanboy I am, I'm most excited about:
    Game "To be determined" - Square Enix
    • That was the title on teh list that interested me the most, considering that less than a week ago, Square-Enix said that they were taking a "wait and see" approach on the PSP, and not actively making games yet.

      If you are a Square fanboy, you might want to try the DS next door over, as Square-Enix itself has admitted to making 3 games for it.

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