A New Lease of Life for the PSP

By Nitin Sagar |Thursday, November 12, 2009

As the four heavily armoured mercenaries aimed for the neck of the monster with their massive swords time and time again unsuccessfully, they realized taking down the beast would not be a simple task. The creature, resembling a Velociraptor but standing at almost double its height, hit back at its assailants and knocked the shortest one among them off his feet. Pulling him to safety as he recovered his consciousness, the others decided to try a new tactic – to flank the brute from all sides and find his weak spot. Loud ambient sound filled the compartment as the woman in the speaker was now announcing that the metro was arriving at the Shibuya Station, where 2 of the gamers would have to dismount. The 2 young girls waved at their companion and put their PSPs in their cases; the monster hunting would have to wait till the next morning.

Games such as the very popular Monster Hunter Freedom are making sure that the PS3’s little handheld sibling continues to sell successfully (at least in the eastern Asian countries) and hopefully complete its 10 year predicted life cycle. But certainly Sony would not deny the fact that even though the PlayStation Portable will be completing its 5 years in the limelight this winter, it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride for the handheld console.

Launched in 2004, the PSP was an instant gaming success selling out almost in all regions wherever it was launched. Its USP being its stellar graphics which could almost give the then-current generation consoles a run for their money, the PSP further basked in glory with the aid of excellent launch titles such as Metal Gear Acid of the renowned MGS series and a new incarnation of Burnout. Some famous PS2 ports such as the Prince of Persia titles and some fresh ones of familiar franchises such as Ratchet and Clank and Grand Theft Auto gave the handheld more leverage; and new IPs such as LocoRoco and Patapon were the icing on the piano black cake.

However, there were still enough shortcomings which prevented Sony from dreaming of swimming in a green lake of Benjamin Franklins. Though the PSP boasted of much better graphics and multimedia capabilities, it did not quite manage to dominate the sales numbers over the Nintendo DS, which was almost half its cost, proving that superior graphics alone do not make better games. The failure of UMD movies, often priced higher than their higher resolution DVD counterparts and which were eventually pulled off the shelves, also added to Sony’s discomfort. Also, the lack of a second analog stick made playing shooters on the PSP extremely cumbersome.

Undoubtedly the major blow to the PSP came from those one-eyed, sea-loving, scurvy scallywags (commonly referred to as pirates); the most infamous among them, Dark Alex, almost a household name now. The cracking of the UMD format and creation of custom PSP firmwares capable of playing homebrew applications led to rampant piracy. The evils of piracy can be judged from these scary numbers – Resistance Retribution, a much touted AAA title released in March this year, sold roughly a meagre 260,000 copies worldwide, whereas a quick glance at the currently active torrents for the game at just one popular piracy site puts the estimated download numbers at an astounding 170,000! The fact that PSP games could be easily downloaded off the internet and played for free, coupled with the PSP’s pricey development kit, made the developers sceptical to make games for it considering its much smaller user base than its closest cousin, the PS2.

This severe backlash against the PSP could be seen in late 2008 and early 2009 when several months passed by without a single notable PSP release (the mystical land of Japan with no regards for Earthly laws does not count). With certain games such as the rumoured Devil May Cry for the PSP supposedly shelved and the fabled launch title Gran Turismo nowhere in sight, the PSP was seemingly heading for a slow and painful death. It appeared unlikely that gems such as the well-received Grand Theft Auto spinoffs would be gracing the PSP again.

As it turned out, Sony was not ready to lay down the gauntlet just yet.  At E3 2009, Sony announced one of the worst kept secrets in gaming history – PSP Go. An emphasis on the digital distribution format led to all future (and past) PSP games being made available for download on the PlayStation Network Store. Furthermore, with a series of cheap, bite-sized games called “Minis” and digital versions of Marvel comics also being added to the online store, Sony is now making sure that the only hindrance users would face in procuring the latest content for their PSPs would be their own morality.

Moreover, the price reduction of the PSP dev-kits in 2008 was resulting in a plethora of new upcoming first-party and third-party games:  Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines, Dissidia : Final Fantasy, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, Final Fantasy Agito XIII and Resident Evil Portable. The missing-in-action Gran Turismo PSP also (finally) made its debut along with the PSP Go’s launch in October earlier this year. Also, it truly did seem that Gods themselves were blessing the portable console when Hideo Kojima announced that the “true” next Metal Gear Solid sequel would be coming exclusively to the PSP in the form of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the development of which would be handled by the original team behind the magnificent MGS4. The next gamer to declare that the PSP is on its last leg would surely be declared a heretic and burnt at the stake.

Although in the past couple of months, Sony has churned out quite a number of remarkable achievements to snatch its piano-coloured handheld offspring from the cold grips of death, there are still certain challenges ahead which must be tackled. The 2^nd analog stick has remained a desire of many gamers, which the PSP Go has been unable to fulfil. The new iteration of the hardware is also priced a little too steeply (at $250) to give it a major price edge over the Nintendo DS which has shown absolutely no sign of retreating. As if a single touch-screen handheld rival was not enough, there is now also intense competition from the iPhone, which is determined to prove itself as a worthy gaming platform and rumours of an upcoming Xbox portable, if true, would be another challenge to be faced. Yet, today, the PSP seems likely to do more than just survive the rat race. Sony’s change of strategies may just work in warding off the Reaper for another half of a decade.