14 DAY TRIAL // The recent focus on the PlayStation 3, with the redesign process beginning in 2008 and with the recent launch of the Slim version and the price cut, has been detrimental to the health of the PlayStation Portable as a viable gaming platform. Now, Sony is aiming to shift focus to its mobile gaming platform and challenge the domination of this space that Nintendo enjoys with the various DS versions.
U.S. studio head Shuhei Yoshida admitted while speaking to Gamasutra that, “A couple of years ago we clearly put too much focus on PS3 titles and that caused a lack of support for the PSP last year. So we need to be focused and gear a lot of our resources back to the PSP, and we have many titles this year,” before assuring those who owned the Sony handheld that, “We are continuing to support the PSP. We didn't announce new titles, but in the near future we'll have some announcements.”
It seems that Sony is mainly focused on bringing the biggest PlayStation 3 it has to the PSP, with Rock Band, LittleBigPlanet and Assassin's Creed all getting games for the device. Yoshida hopes that these new, high-profile titles will share the fate of the Monster Hunter franchise, which has been most successful on the PSP, even if it debuted on home consoles.
The recent launch of the PSP Go, which has an unmovable battery and gets all its content via download from the PlayStation Network, has been received with mixed feelings by gamers. A lot of people are upset that there is no way to move UMD disc collections to the new device and there are others who complain that the fixed battery limits the amount of gaming that can be done on the road without recharging. The situation will probably get better as more titles are released digitally, but Nintendo is not standing still and seems to be interested in releasing a DS version that can use the ubiquitous 3G networks.