Well the biggest system selling software of PSP in 2005 was GTA Liberty City Stories. Game had size of 1.2Gb. If you wanted somewhat PS2 caliber games during early PSP era cards were non option. I mean early DS games were on at max 128Mb cards.
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The Verge: The portable PlayStations were Sony at its most ambitious
- Thread starter Earvin Infinity
- Start date
Well the biggest system selling software of PSP in 2005 was GTA Liberty City Stories. Game had size of 1.2Gb. If you wanted somewhat PS2 caliber games during early PSP era cards were non option. I mean early DS games were on at max 128Mb cards.
You ask yourself where first party JRPGs went. The answer is PSP. Since White Knight Chronicles Origin was the last one in 2011 we haven't seen any effort on JRPGs from Sony. Sure, they brought back Oreshika on PS Vita but that is not even impressive. Everything else were multiplayer action games like the hunting genre.
I love my PSP to death. Still carry it around sometimes. The library was good, PSX on PSP was my jam, homebrew scene was amazing and it just had the right size to not be a bother in the pocket while having a good screen. By the time the Vita came out it never captivate me the same way though, weirdly enough.
I'm with you there, the Vita was good and all but the PSP was truly something special. After coming from the GBA it felt like a huge leap forward for me in regards to how powerful a portable system could be.
Great library too, and then with homebrew we could play emulators up to PS1, just crazy.
When it comes to Sony's home consoles, I've only truly loved the first PlayStation.
But I'd be first in line for another portable.
But I'd be first in line for another portable.
I always preferred the build quality of their portable systems compared to Nintendo's which felt cheap in comparison. The PSP in particular felt like something from the future. You were getting near-PS2 quality titles on a handheld. It would be years before the rest of the industry caught up and unfortunately by the time the Vita came out it did. At the end of the day it was Nintendo's game to lose. They pretty much had it to themselves from the beginning. Sony managed to deliver the most serious competition they ever had in the space. 80 million units is nothing to slouch at. It also had its shortcomings at well. They were never able to fully deliver their promise of console gaming on the go due to hardware and design limitations. People just didn't want lesser versions and spin-offs of popular titles. Smartphones pretty much took care of the rest to the point where the market wasn't big enough to sustain more than one hardware manufacturer. Nintendo found the perfect balance by streamlining their development pipeline into one product with the Switch, but Sony decided not to spread themselves too thin and cut their losses to focus on their strengths with VR and console gaming.
The PSP (and even my later PSP Go) were beloved items -- as much as my DS Lite. It was everything: a not-quite-but-almost portable PS2 (especially with the portable GTA games, Persona 3 Portable, Gran Turismo, etc.), web browser and iPod. The RSS feature alone was very useful to me -- lots of automatic downloads of the 1Up Show / podcasts.
Ahhh... nostalgia.
Ahhh... nostalgia.
I don't think it was a matter of catching up since console quality on handhelds were a thing even in the 90s with stuff like the Game Gear. The problem was that console quality handhelds always lost to the 'inferior' Gameboy. Sony gave the best case for console quality on the go that was somewhat affordable and didn't eat through batteries, but Sony didn't have the full understanding that console gaming isn't exactly the same as handheld gaming. That and it was obvious that Sony put their B Team on their handhelds, compared to Nintendo given then handhelds the best treatment possible.
The Game Boy had a faster CPU of the same type as the 'console quality' Game Gear.
The issue was battery life, size, and price. These were things the PSP got closer to acceptable in but also added in load times for disks.
Just wish they didn't choose a proprietary memory card...I get they wanted to stave off piracy/emulation but those prices killed so much interest. I still own my OLED version and my 2000 version.
Which I addressed in my original post:
The PSP's main fatal flaw was its games. Sony didn't have a full understanding that portable gaming wasn't quite the same as console gaming, and they put their B Teams on their handhelds instead of major players like Naughty Dog. In fact, I believe Naughty Dog scoffed at the notion at developing for a handheld.
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The two greatest handhelds of all time. You people fucking disgust me. Vita didn't fail. People failed the Vita. If there was any justice Vita would have been the most popular system of the generation, had support from everyone and right now I'd be losing my shit in excitement over the upcoming PSP3. The fact we will never get a PSP3 is a travesty. Absolutely disgusting you should all be ashamed of yourselves. Something of great value has been lost without Sony in the handheld market.
Was this Sony at their most ambitious? I love both of Sony's handhelds but I feel like Sony's only ambition with them was to make something more powerful than Nintendo's handheld efforts which isn't nothing but also I wouldn't say that's a crazy ambitious approach.
Also, I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion that I get a lot of heat for but outside of Tearaway and the Wipeout games I feel like most of Sony's first party output on those handhelds was largely uninspired and unambitious. While Nintendo was often great about putting top tier talent on making handheld entries and often tailoring those entries to the hardware & portability in notable ways Sony's approach was generally to have a B tier dev team put out a mediocre entry to a beloved franchise that could've just been released on a console (and sometimes were with some of those PSP to PS2 ports).
Also, I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion that I get a lot of heat for but outside of Tearaway and the Wipeout games I feel like most of Sony's first party output on those handhelds was largely uninspired and unambitious. While Nintendo was often great about putting top tier talent on making handheld entries and often tailoring those entries to the hardware & portability in notable ways Sony's approach was generally to have a B tier dev team put out a mediocre entry to a beloved franchise that could've just been released on a console (and sometimes were with some of those PSP to PS2 ports).
I rmember 40+ seconds of loadings from UMD and Square buttons that registered 2 presses out of 3.
Software did not, tho.
I think it's generally agreed that Sony's handhelds had meh 1st party support outside of gems like Gravity Rush, but PSP and to a lesser extent Vita had very good Japanese 3rd support.
PSP was truly Sony in its most ambitious form. They went for the jugular with Nintendo. It was supposed to be the PS2/GameCube massacre all over again.
But Nintendo was less ambitious and more ingenious and won in the end.
But Nintendo was less ambitious and more ingenious and won in the end.
I have to slightly disagree. The DS was indeed ambitious since Nintendo was abandoning their tried and true Gameboy, which was still selling a lot with the GameBoy Advance, to try something different with the DS. Granted, they did it so if their idea sucked it wouldn't take the GameBoy's name with it, but the DS was indeed an ambitious undertaking for Nintendo since they left their confront zone.
You can say this about most systems, especially retroactively when you aren't dealing with the price and context of the time. But it was clear from Sony's side these were a side gig, they weren't diverting any of their best resources to it which was in direct contrast to Nintendo's strategy. It just happened that a few 3rd parties saw decent uptake because they were able to port some of their PS2 properties to it. And for companies like Capcom that leaned into it with their A-game, they got a decent reward. But it's pretty permissive to allow Sony to take credit for that.
Well, since the DS was almost like a side project, that's why they weren't ambitious. Sony went for a portable PS2 dominance. That's ambition.
But Nintendo is not a "Goodie goodie" company. They also have lots of ambition, that's not a bad word in my mind.
It really wasn't a side project given that Nintendo put their top teams on it. Sony in comparison didn't put their best on PSP. In fact, they tried to 'dominant' with B tier teams, while Nintendo put a new 2D Mario on the DS after they did nothing but port Mario games to the GameBoy Advance.
Not sure what being 'Goodie goodie' or not have to do with this.
The only game i bootup and play from time to time on my OG Vita.
Arcade like fun.
I enjoyed my time with PSP and now I'm enjoying my Vita, but damn the fact you need mod the console to bypass the storage limitation is such a stupid choice from Sony.
The switch fucking proved that if people have a choice between playing the same game on the TV vs on a Portable device, they WILL CHOSE THE PORTABLE DEVICE. This was the dream of the Vita- having MLB the Show be able to cross save with the PS3 version was incredible. But then, the PS4 came out, and the idea of having Cross-play games basically went away apart from Indie games
Actually, the Switch proves that people like the option to chose between the TV and portable. Even Nintendo's own research shows that there is a 50/50 split between those who play on dock and those who play handheld.
I kinda agree, and I kinda don't. Their vision for the platform itself was ambitious - but they lacked an ambitious game strategy. The early GTA games on PSP were mega, but not much beyond that.
The difference between Nintendo and Sony is that Nintendo doesn't treat their handhelds as a secondary platform. The PSP and Vita were always secondary to the PS2 and PS3/4.
The difference between Nintendo and Sony is that Nintendo doesn't treat their handhelds as a secondary platform. The PSP and Vita were always secondary to the PS2 and PS3/4.
Imagine calling the Vita a "daunting competitor" for anything other than "most easily forgotten console"
imagine living that life
What? There was nothing like PSP. It was incredibly ambitious.
Imagine meme-ing and goofing on PSP/Vita whenever they get brought up on Era.
Yeah, the writing was on the wall for this. Vita scratched the surface with what would eventually become the main selling point of the Switch. People bought indies on Vita because they were the best place to play them. Cross save and Cross buy were expensive versions of what the Switch would eventually bring into full focus. Sony could have been there but they are a modern company. They look at something at face value and pivot to what data shows the market wants. The difference with Nintendo is they look a bit deeper and try to predict where market is going beyond what is right in front of them. This leads to bombs like the Wii U sometimes but it also leads to great things like the DS, Wii, and the Switch.
Seriously. The rewriting of history around the PSP is obnoxious. For many people, it was their first multimedia device pre-smartphone. Never mind the leap from GBA SP to PSP in terms of hardware.
I didn't say anything about the PSP because the PSP was fantastic. I used my PSP all the time. I haven't used my Vita in 2 years.
The Vita was in no way shape or form a daunting competitor for the 3DS.
I feel it's moreso a case of :
1) the ability to seamlessly switch between tethered and untethered play was a function people didn't realize they wanted until it was presented to them, at least in the manner Nintendo presented it with its reveal. I mean when I first saw the commercial with the guy playing on his TV, removing the console from the dock, taking the dog out to the park and then picking up where he left off with the untethered device......it was so simple, obvious and brilliant in a 'wow, how didn't I know I wanted this?!' kinda way.
2) not having to purchase 2 systems( home and portable) with distinct ecosystems. Everything coming from Nintendo over the next half decade( and likely beyond) is all available on one platform. Doing this has positioned the Switch to go down as one of the great consoles in gaming history( IMHO of course).
It wasn't just the hardware that was flawed. The Vita was conceptually flawed.
The PSP vs DS debate was wild. I wonder, if Nintendo would not chase the casual market, how different would have been the situation because PSP really outdid DS in every way.
I remember buying a DS near launch because Nintendo and being salty for years for not getting a PSP (well I could have not afford by then). DS has grow to me to be my second worst console purchase.
I remember buying a DS near launch because Nintendo and being salty for years for not getting a PSP (well I could have not afford by then). DS has grow to me to be my second worst console purchase.
had a Vita but never played it after Persona 4 Golden. Prefered the 3ds lol
What would have a more straight forward evolution of GBA lead to? Basically to a PSP esque system without the inapropriate UMD format. It's no surprise that PSP was followed up by PSV. Switch Lite is also basically a current gen GBA in its design, obviously with more advanced features that were established in over a decade after GBA.
PSP was the best place to watch the 1UP Show. <3 Good times.
A++