Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Future of the PSP

So, I have a White PSP Slim (The Darth Vader one), and I really like the design and capabilities of it, but lately I've found myself playing it less and less. I've got a few games that I'm still playing and a small list of games I want to get from Gamefly. But, there just aren't a lot of titles that I'm dying to play on it. Games I've really enjoyed include the Syphon Filter games, the Lego games, Daxter, Ratchet and Clank. So there has been cool content that was unique to the platform, but it seems that many studios are shying away from releasing content solely for the system.

I'm looking forward to Resistance Retribution, but other than that and Star Wars The Force Unleashed, there aren't a ton of must-play games coming out. It's not a new suggestion, but I think piracy is slowly killing the platform. Studios don't want to spend the development money when they know that a greater percentage of people are going to download the game illegally. The hardware sales have been climbing steadily, but eventually, there won't be any new games coming out for it other than ports of other games. I'm really concerned because I would hate to see my PSP just gathering dust. I've even toyed with selling it, but three things keep me from doing that:

1. Remote Play. This has been a really cool feature that I don't think has been properly utilized. There are a few games out there that should create a patch for playing via remote play. The Lego games would be awesome over remote play (although this would cannibalize the sales of that platform). I played PixelJunk Monsters via Remote Play, and other than a little lag here and there, it worked very well.
2. Exclusive games or content. The Resistance game, and the new content in Star Wars The Force Unleashed will hold my interest for now, but unless something else is coming out...
3. Online play with friends. So, really this is meant for me and one friend to play golf. That has been fun even though he killed me. But, the online experience with the PS3 is so much better, I wonder how long this will be of interest.

I hope that Sony pushes some good first party titles for the PSP, and I would love it if other studios followed suit. Maybe they need to focus on downloadable since that seems to be more secure, and would have the cost savings of digital distribution. I'm grasping because I'm concerned with the future of the PSP, and it's too cool a platform to just disappear.

4 comments:

Chris said...

I'm happy to beat you at Tiger Woods anytime. Glad to help.

PJ said...

Yep, so far you're the only person I've played online with it... Hey, did you say you had Madden 08? A guy I know gave me Battlefront II for PSP that someone had left in a rental car and not gone back to get, but inside was actually Madden 08.

Chris said...

Yeah, I have Madden 08. Do I get to beat you at that now, too?

PJ said...

Probably. I haven't played it yet. You gonna keep it or go for the new one?