RAD’s Didier Malenfant: the PSP is a great platform

Didier Malenfant, co-founder of game studio Ready At Dawn (RAD) got interviewed by the folks from GamesIndustry recently and a lot was revealed regarding RAD’s new project, the studio’s plans to develop for next-gen consoles, and his take on where the PSP is at the moment.

When asked if the PSP platform has lived up to his expectations, Malenfant emphatically says yes. He says that the PSP is “a great platform” and that they’ve had a lot of fun with it. At the moment he says that they’re very much happy with the way Daxter (their previous title) has done, and they reassure that they’re still investing in the platform. Malenfant declares, “We’re a single game company and for now that game is on PSP.“

Get the rest of the article after the Jump!

 

Didier Malenfant, co-founder of game studio Ready At Dawn (RAD) got interviewed by the folks from GamesIndustry recently and a lot was revealed regarding RAD’s new project, the studio’s plans to develop for next-gen consoles, and his take on where the PSP is at the moment.

When asked if the PSP platform has lived up to his expectations, Malenfant emphatically says yes. He says that the PSP is “a great platform” and that they’ve had a lot of fun with it. At the moment he says that they’re very much happy with the way Daxter (their previous title) has done, and they reassure that they’re still investing in the platform. Malenfant declares, “We’re a single game company and for now that game is on PSP.“

 

As for developing for the PSP, Malenfant says that perhaps other publishers aren’t putting their best teams on the PSP, especially now since everyone is so focused on developing for the 360 and the PS3. He adds that he doesn’t think that it is any more difficult to develop for the PSP than it is for the DS. He says that the PSP is really no more complex than the PSone, and that there are a lot of folks out there who are experienced in that platform. He implies that it’s not the platform that is the problem.

He says that there’s really an opportunity for people to make good games for the PSP platform, and that the fact that some titles are doing particularly well only shows that there’s a market out there. He notes that the games that are going to be released for 2007 should be interesting. As for their new game, he’s a bit mum about it. He gave the standard we-can’t-talk-about-it-yet response.

 

When it comes to developing for the PS3, Malenfant says that they’re eager to see what they could do on next-gen platforms. He says that “it’s just a matter of finding the right project.” Of course this eagerness doesn’t mean exclusivity to the PS3 though. He explains:

Not necessarily; again, it all depends on the project. It could be PS3 or 360 or both. If we find a game we’re excited about and it happens to be on 360, we’ll go for it. We just work with what the platform’s capable of and get the most out of it rather than focusing on limitations.

As for the all the negative PR that Sony‘s been getting at the moment here’s his take on it:

All the buzz about Sony nicely hid the fact that Microsoft weren’t selling many 360s and didn’t really have any good games until Gears of War came out. I think everybody is in a similar position if you look at how PR gets handled and how things are interpreted.

Finally, here’s his take on the possibility of Sony being able to lead this generation. He says: “It’s their market to lose. That’s the reality. It doesn’t depend on Nintendo or Microsoft – it depends on them.” Has Sony been able to do their own consoles justice so far? We’ll leave that up to you folks.