2007: The Year of the PSP

2006 was arguably the year of the DS. PSP received some great games, most notably Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Monster Hunter Portable, but DS had the far better year.

This year we can expect DS to start to slow down and PSP to dig in and show it' s staying power as the games we were initially promised are starting to arrive. PSP will allow for the closet thing to console gaming on the move yet.

We' ve already had two GTA games that have shown just what Sony' s first handheld is technically capable of. We' ve had a good number of titles spanning every possible genre, and yet we haven' t had games that really reflect their console roots. The two Metal Gear games we' ve had so far have been quirky card battling games and not exactly what we wanted. Sure they had style but we wanted a portable version of the console games and they' re only just about ready to supply it.

UMD movies may be dead in the water but the gaming side of things is about to reach fever pitch. In the first half of the year we will receive fully fledged version of Oblivion, Virtua Tennis 3, Crazy Taxi, Ghost Recon, Ratchet & Clank, Metal Gear, Test Drive, The Warriors, Ace Combat etc.. and sequels to Guilty Gear, Death Jr, Burnout, Prince of Persia, Tony Hawks, Tomb Raider and more.

At some point, the standalone PSone web-based download center will go live whereby a PS3 won' t be required to enable playing PSone games via emulation on PSP. That alone means PSP will have a better year than DS. The ability to go back and play much loved classics or try games you may have missed the first time around is something Sony should be praised for. I mean, i' ll be able to replay Vagrant Story and Resident Evil 2, and i' ll be able to do it on my PSP.

The towards the end of the year we will get our hands on a " proper" Final Fantasy game, an awesome looking Silent Hill, FlatOut, 300: march to Glory and god only knows what else. If they drop the price and accessories like the PSP camera and GPS receiver take off and developers utilize them in games then it' ll be even better. All Sony need to do is set up downloadable movies from the web-based Sony store along with the PSone games and they' ll be unbeatable.

That was beautiful Majik!

Yeah.. I agree with alot of what you said.

However, I don' t think that Sony will release too many PSOne games at once, since the piracy/homebrew-scene likes to crack the DRM on the games available on PS-Store, and Sony can' t release as many new games fro download without new firmwares inbetween. :-(

...i' ve always felt that handheld gaming sucked, but lately the PSP is sorta looking almost viable to serious gamers like myself....

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DS will always kick the psps arse, it just common sense...dont see why theres all the fuss over the DS, it gets old fast but unlike the psp it has a lot of new games instead of remakes.

DS will always kick the psps arse, it just common sense...dont see why theres all the fuss over the DS, it gets old fast but unlike the psp it has a lot of new games instead of remakes.

Ummm, I beg to differ. I think what your trying to say is that the DS makes good remakes such as The New Super Mario Bros., Mario 64, and Mariokart.

It seems Test Drive Unlimited is looking great.
IGN PREVIEW

At this stage, we' re surprised and humbled by the fine job Melbourne House has done in bringing a complex game to a handheld without removing the spine or soul of the experience. We can' t wait to take this puppy online and find out if the experience measures up to - or even improves upon - the 360 version. This is shaping up to be the PSP' s single largest and most complex racer to date, and might just be one of the most impressive ports of the year.

I love my PSP, and yes, 2007 its gonna be amazing for it, there are just so much things i want, for 07 i want:

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Final Fantasy Tactics
Jeanne D´Arc
Gran Turismo Mobile
Tales of Phantasia
The DMC game

Wow that bought a tear to my eyes.

I really hope the psp does have a good year, and hopefully Oblivion and Crazy Taxi will help, along with Ace combat (which I thought was already out, but never mind.)

Does anyone know anything about any more GTA' s maybe a San An stories or something along those lines?

Can' t believe TDU is coming though, I just hope that companies don' t try and convert all the decent 360 stuff to the PSP otherwise I will have a very poor 2007 of buying a 360 version and a psp version.

Is there any timeframe for the PSone emu, I know some people are saying that HB will put a stop to many of the games being released, but seriously have you some of the HB conversions, they are not as good as the original and I am sure the official licenced versions would be better.

Long live the PSP

I really hope the psp does have a good year, and hopefully Oblivion and Crazy Taxi will help, along with Ace combat (which I thought was already out, but never mind.)

lmfao, i hope you are kidding about oblivion on psp. Oblivion can barely run 78% correctly on the 360 much less the psp

Does anyone know anything about any more GTA' s maybe a San An stories or something along those lines?

most likely, because thats basically the only game thats sold

The psp is also getting Burnout Dominator if it wasn' t already said, a title exclusive to psp and ps2. Its meant to play like burnout 3 + the old burnouts from the second game return.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

if PSP is DEAD today, it will still be a much greater machine than the DS considering psone emulation alone!

as for the psp games, i' m not really excisted about anything, developers still didn' t learn that when people buy a handheld they expect games for the go...

games for 2007? ratchet and silent hill do look good, but i' m very skeptical about final fantasy... other than those games, what else would you expect, oblivion? that game is huge, require a lot of hourse to finish and graphics will look crap on the psp.

i hope they will break the 222mhz limit they impose on the psp , although this might come to the expense of the battery life , which is already not that good. i don' t use UMD' s and i' m little bit complaining, i' m wondering about the others.


the 480*272 for movies is also a welcome, i was eager for that to happen and the homebrew scene realized it before sony (this special feature was on IGN' s wishlist)
finaly movies look almost as good as on UMD ( i didn' t try higher bitrates , so it should match the exact quality).

PSP without the homebrew scene would be a dead console , not a single doubt about it and DS is a better choice.

but if your PSP is using ALEX' s firmware (3.03 OE-B), that handheld is GOLD.

if PSP is DEAD today, it will still be a much greater machine than the DS considering psone emulation alone!

The DS does play GBA games which happen to be one of the greatest collections of games ever.
Why are you sceptical about FFVIICC? IGN seemed to like it in their preview.
I' m not using homebrew but I still love the PSP.

Yeah.. I agree with alot of what you said.

However, I don' t think that Sony will release too many PSOne games at once, since the piracy/homebrew-scene likes to crack the DRM on the games available on PS-Store, and Sony can' t release as many new games fro download without new firmwares inbetween. :-(

It won' t be that big of a deal. Smart people can already get/run that stuff anyway.

The DS does play GBA games which happen to be one of the greatest collections of games ever.

you' e kidding ginjirou, first of all , since you can use psone emulation library today, it means u can use GBA emulation that is 90% to 100% perfect emulation.

regardless of this, Psone is a million times better than GBA, it' s even a shame to compare, for those who haven' t owned a psone back in the day, it' s heaven, i run final fantasy 7 on my PSPwith a very very minor glitches in combat (that i' m mentioning only because i feel i have to) other games are just perfect (xenogears, alundra, castlevania)

GBA is an awesome handheld but it is no match with psone.

GBA is an awesome handheld but it is no match with psone.

I don' t know about that since I never owned a GBA but some time ago when I looked at some lists of PS1 and GBA games, the GBA actually had lots more high scoring games than the PS1. I was very surprpised but the GBA like... killed everything else.

if PSP is DEAD today, it will still be a much greater machine than the DS considering psone emulation alone!

Yes, psone emulation so... other than bloody roar that leaves what exactly?

Masta have a read on this and let us know what you think, I couldn' t believe it either but it looks true.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/703/703228p1.aspx

bloady roar ?? lool

man i' m not gonna answer an idiot like you, unless of course you are not serious , in this case i' m sorry i didn' t get your stupid joke.

I don' t know about that since I never owned a GBA but some time ago when I looked at some lists of PS1 and GBA games, the GBA actually had lots more high scoring games than the PS1

i don' t know about that either but a 96% on psone worth much more than 96% GBA obviously.

have u owned a psone, if so di play many games on that system? and what is your kind of games? rpg' s , racing, platform ??

THE IGN article is dated US, April 25, 2006 ....

Sorry the first one I could find at short notice.

I know Kikizo have also mentioned this but could not find it. Bethseda also says that it si in dev for the PS3 and PSP, so it looks like it is still a go' er.

No need to have a pop just for the age of an article.

i don' t know about that either but a 96% on psone worth much more than 96% GBA obviously.

No, the value is the same.
The GBA games are adapted to portable gaming while the PS1 games are not. However the PS1 games are more advanced which gives the same value as GBA games.

have u owned a psone, if so di play many games on that system? and what is your kind of games? rpg' s , racing, platform ??

I like most kinds of games.
On the PS1 I liked games like Ridge Racer, Twisted Metal, Metal Gear Solid, Crash Bandicoot, Ape Escape, Final Fantasy VII, Apocalypse, Future Cop LAPD, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Pocket Fighter, Air Combat, Mortal Kombat, GTA, Resident Evil.. you know, the usuall Sony stuff.

i don' t agre with you there, take any rpg on GBA , it is definitly not better than any final fantasy game , xenogears, star ocean and much more.

same for racing, fighting, there is no racing game on GBA better than gran turismo series or ridge racer series. in fact i should not even make a comparaison because there is a huge difference.

when GBA was released back in the day and nintendo announced that it is a 32bit. people start dreaming about it, thinking that it' s probably as powerful as psone. i' m talking about the average consumer , not geeks or nerds. i was expecting same or almost the quality of a final fantasy 8 on GBA , truth is i was very disapointed. but it' s ok now i got over it and GBA still had some excellent games it' s just that psone has much more appealing games than GBA , even if psone games are not made for handheld, in many games, it doesn' t make a difference. in fact , lot of people dreamed having final fantasy 7 on the go.

Not sure where you are coming from with what you just said, however I will say onething, I would suggest that any PSP version of any game unless it is a written for the PSP game original, is technically a cut down version and I would assume that Oblivion would be the same, although I would think that due to the Graphical capabilities of the psp then hopefully it will be somewhat of a piece of eyecandy to play, these are only my thoughts so who knows.

I can understand that you don' t agree with me.
All I can say is that even though the PS1 was much more powerful than the GBA, the games that were released on the GBA probably compensated their lack of technological power with good ol' gameplay value.
Do I think Tetris (GB) is better than Metal Gear Solid (PS1) still today? Yes, I do.
I don' t expect you to agree with such an odd statement but at least you might understand my point of view.
Still, I never had a GBA so I can' t really say if the games really were that good, I just read it somewhere.

I understand where you are coming from Ginjirou, it is the old arguement of what makes a game, is it gameplay or is it the graphics, after speaking to a few dev friends of mine sometime back, they try and do as much of a 70-30 split in favour of graphics most of the time, as it tends to be the graphics that draws a person into the game, when they see it in a booth or in an advert. Gameplay is important don' t get me wrong, but there are only so many ways you can program a controller to do certain things, hence the reason why the Wii is a big hit at the moment.

But my friends were also saying that porting from one system to another is a piss poor way of earning a living, when they have ideas of their own for new games, but they lack the neccesary to get it out there.

as it tends to be the graphics that draws a person into the game

Yes, but what matters is how you feel for the game after a few hours of playing.
Nice graphics might give good sales but fun gameplay will give satisfied customers.

oh look, The Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion for PSP...



...looks pretty damn good to me. Different setting though, ...i' m guessing no outdoor areas whatsoever. But still, i' ll be buying it and it' s bound to be awesome.

Apologies for the low res scans, they' re the best i could find.

You are right, however the almighty £$€ or whatever tend to try and drive most markets and unfortunately it' s Graphics that sells, although the 70-30 split could be changing as more and more game review mags are starting to mark games down for " Clunky" , " Basic" and " Cumbersome" control mechanisms, maybe more of a 55-45 split in the future?

Nice grabs Majik although the " arrives sometime in 2007" sounds abit dodgy.

have u owned a psone, if so di play many games on that system? and what is your kind of games? rpg' s , racing, platform ??

Yes i did own a ps1. I thought it was shit. so i let it pretty much gather dust as i played my 64 and SNES. The only games i thought the ps1 was sufficent for were fighting games, but im not really crazy about fighting games. The only games i really was interested in was tekken 2(for about five minuets) Crash Bandacoot, Spyro, and the WWF smackdown series

ORIGINAL: mastachefbkw
The only games i really was interested in was ), Spyro,

i cant play Spyro, the camera makes me sick after 5 minutes, i love Crash 1, 2 and 3, they where awesome.

But i can live without those games, im interested in Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Valkiria Profile, Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Castlevania SotN, Medievil, WipeOut, those games i want

Thinking about the basics, PSP is a poorly designed Handheld in comparison with the DS, no matter what type of games it gets they are going to feel gimped..

IF there was any year for the PSP to have a chance against the DS, it was last year.. TWO GTA titles should of ended it (in the west).. but not Even GTA helped the PSP in sales vs. the DS.

You Can throw the PSP any game / genre you want at it but in general they are going to feel extremely clumsy and gimped next to DS equivalents.

People are too use to the quick, responsiveness of the DS controls and navigations IE: simple things, such using the touch screen / Pen to navigate through options, using the second screen for maps, having a responsive D-pad that don’t let you down.. There’s no beating playing RPG' s / Adventures on the DS and this year DS is going to have major RPG' s / Adventures:

Final Fantasy, Dragons quest, Zelda, INUYASHA, ETC.

Lets face it, these are going to play like a dream, have many features and gamplay. elements that PSP equivalents simply wont have.


Touch Screen / Dual Screen / Microphone /

Lets not forget that the DS was designed for new ideas and would no doubt be successful brand new IPs on the horizon.

Nintendo PR.

Nintendo are too clever for Sony in the handheld market.. All it’s going to take is Nintendo to reveal a New DS and the public will go crazy over it. There are very strong rumours going around at the moment that Nintendo do have a new (bigger screened, something else?? Powered up???) DS on the way...

Sony have to bring out a totally new redesigned PSP2 and start again if they want to compete with Nintendo on a serious level. Until then the DS is going to stride further away.

But saying all this, Magic thread was right about this year PSP’s line up is going to be the strongest year for it so-far.

Also Nitnendo know the difference between, Handheld gaming and attemping to put console games on a handheld that you would rather play on a big screen with full controls..

Sony Need to sit down and seriously re-think the PSP because now its only attracting mainly graphics whores and gadgit freaks...

Ummm, I beg to differ. I think what your trying to say is that the DS makes good remakes such as The New Super Mario Bros., Mario 64, and Mariokart.

New Super Mario Bros isn' t a remake , nor is Mario Kart.

PSP already has staying power, but no matter what Nintendo will be on top. Serious gamers will always be a minority compared to " gamers" and since Nintendo gets both and PsP generally only gets a small amount of gamers it shows the install base.

" What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things."
~ Unknown ~

I can see this getting nasty, both handhelds have their pros and cons.
The DS has been aimed at a younger audience initially (Look at Nintendogs, animal crossing,) aimed at the pre-pubscents, however they have been clever with this by getting the kids interested then following it up with more adult orientated games to follow up with. The PSP was from the outset aimed at the older demographic and as such has not had the child friendly games until recently (Locoroco.) Please don' t degrade this into a PSP Vs DS as last year was a good year for the DS, and with the games coming this year it looks to be a good year for the PSP.

No girls play PSP.
Lots of girls play DS.
If Sony could somehow get girls to buy the PSP...

The psp is simply not intuitive enough, nor is it cute enough to gain mass appeal to girls the way that the DS lite does. Truely casual gamers care more about the style of the physical hardware than they do about the features specs or even games.

Don' t get me wrong, I' m not saying all girl gamers are casual gamers but most of the new gamers that the DS lite is appealing to are not harsh critics the way that we are. If Sony wants to appeal to new gamers they need to make their hardware stylish in a non intimidating way, have a bunch of simple and cute games like Nintendo Dogs and have a competitive price point. If they want to do a better job appealing to hardcore gamers they have to do a much better job in making developer tools for their platforms. This is essentially the reason the 360 is going to kill the PS3. Not only are they relying on third parties to provide middleware for the ps3 they are using unconventional proccessors so the middleware they do have don' t work well with the psp, ps2 and ps3. The ultimate result is that making games is harder more expensive then it is on the competition.

psp will never catch up on DS, it' s too late for that, even if the PSP is value is greater in my opinion.

You Can throw the PSP any game / genre you want at it but in general they are going to feel extremely clumsy and gimped next to DS equivalents.

there is no rpg or racing on ds better than what psone offers, controls in rpg' s are very very simple, so the psp design (like the analog stick will not bother) don' t forget that the psp offers a better screen. even casdtlevania SoTN is better than any castlevania released on Ds. + many great titles that the psp itself offers , in the total , you have great titles in all kinds of games, rpg' s, racings, shoters, action games, fighting, puzzles ... do the DS ofer all this with excellence ? of course NOT !! should i add as well that psp is not a mere console, it also offers you to playback videos, music, read ebooks, interenet (all those features are not really well done) but it' s much much much better than nothing at all !!

for the serious gamers, PSP is the best choice by far today (at the condition of using the homebrew scenes) , without this PSP loses big time to the DS.

don' t also forget that the PSP is more expensive than the DS, so you can' t compare directly sales figure and say hat this one is beter than this one. if you want to use your psp in the right way, don' t forget to add another 60-100 dollar for a 2gig memory stick because without this the PSP worths SHIT.

Sony have tried to entice girls to use the PSP by bringing out the " Pink" version, however it was too late as the DS already had the cutesy market, with Nintedogs etc. However Nintendo cannot keep pandering to that market, this is what Sony are hoping for that the other markets out there will see this and come over to Sony for the likes of PSone emu, Oblivion, Crazy Taxi, Ace Combat etc.

To answer the arguement on the price of the PSP Vs DS the basic console of the DS is a bargin yes, however throw in the add-ons to get the DS upto PSP spec, the price is about the same, and seeing as the PSP comes with a 32Mb stick this is more than enough for the average casual gamer, so no need for any more memory until the time comes to move into the big leagues of homebrew etc. and by then the prices will have fallen.

That Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion for the PSP looks good. Very interesting. i look forward to this one, even though i do not own or plan to get a PSP. I do have a GBA and yes it is better the PSP. Why are we comparing console vs hand held?

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.