Mark Cale says most publishers get it wrong with the PSP

While we’ve always loved our PSPs, we tend to feel a little agitated when our fellow DS owners take jabs at our favorite handheld. The reasons range from unimaginative games to mixed priorities for Sony. As a pure homebrew device, the PSP probably couldn’t get better. As a media device, Sony probably has all the bases covered. But when it comes to games, it appears that Sony and most of the other publishers missed the bus.

Even though we’ve played loads of games on our PSP, we can distinctly remember only a few- Lumines, Wipeout Pure, Virtua Tennis, GTA, Loco Roco. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed gaming on my PSP. And yes, games like Need For Speed or FIFA might be popular on the PSP, but you could probably count 60% of those sales due to people being huge fans of the respective series.

There’s nothing wrong with that; but my point is that there’s hardly any original gameplay. Add in a few cars, make a few new tracks, add a few guns, make the city a little bigger; that’s just about all the changes in every new version of almost every game. And today, we have Mark Cale, Managing Director of Play It, who says that the majority of publishers are “getting it wrong” with the PSP. Here are his thoughts:

“The reason so many games have failed on PSP is that big publishers are prioritising lavish, full 3D productions ahead of gameplay. But this type of game will never be as big as it is on home console, because handheld users are seeking a more addictive, distracting experience.”

He went on to say that gameplay from older classics with refreshed graphics would be the perfect combination for the PSP. He also named Capcom‘s Ultimate GhostsÂ’NÂ’Goblins as an example. “Capcom kept the core gameplay of a vintage classic and tidied up the graphics for a modern system. Unsurprisingly, gamers became hooked.”

Personally, I couldn’t agree more with him. It’s obvious that while publishers like EA have dumped their whole library onto the PSP, there’s hardly anything overly interesting in them. Sure, if you’re a hardcore fan of any of their games, you’d buy them regardless. Call me boring if you will, but until developers can replicate the gameplay of Virtua Tennis, or the addictiveness of games like Lumines, Loco Roco or GTA, I’ll be skeptical. What about you?

While we’ve always loved our PSPs, we tend to feel a little agitated when our fellow DS owners take jabs at our favorite handheld. The reasons range from unimaginative games to mixed priorities for Sony. As a pure homebrew device, the PSP probably couldn’t get better. As a media device, Sony probably has all the bases covered. But when it comes to games, it appears that Sony and most of the other publishers missed the bus.

Even though we’ve played loads of games on our PSP, we can distinctly remember only a few- Lumines, Wipeout Pure, Virtua Tennis, GTA, Loco Roco. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed gaming on my PSP. And yes, games like Need For Speed or FIFA might be popular on the PSP, but you could probably count 60% of those sales due to people being huge fans of the respective series.

There’s nothing wrong with that; but my point is that there’s hardly any original gameplay. Add in a few cars, make a few new tracks, add a few guns, make the city a little bigger; that’s just about all the changes in every new version of almost every game. And today, we have Mark Cale, Managing Director of Play It, who says that the majority of publishers are “getting it wrong” with the PSP. Here are his thoughts:

“The reason so many games have failed on PSP is that big publishers are prioritising lavish, full 3D productions ahead of gameplay. But this type of game will never be as big as it is on home console, because handheld users are seeking a more addictive, distracting experience.”

He went on to say that gameplay from older classics with refreshed graphics would be the perfect combination for the PSP. He also named Capcom‘s Ultimate GhostsÂ’NÂ’Goblins as an example. “Capcom kept the core gameplay of a vintage classic and tidied up the graphics for a modern system. Unsurprisingly, gamers became hooked.”

Personally, I couldn’t agree more with him. It’s obvious that while publishers like EA have dumped their whole library onto the PSP, there’s hardly anything overly interesting in them. Sure, if you’re a hardcore fan of any of their games, you’d buy them regardless. Call me boring if you will, but until developers can replicate the gameplay of Virtua Tennis, or the addictiveness of games like Lumines, Loco Roco or GTA, I’ll be skeptical. What about you?