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PSP Launch May Be Hurt By Lack Of Games?

Posted by simoniker on from the depending-when-it-launches dept.

Thanks to Bloomberg for its article discussing a seeming lack of development kits for Sony's forthcoming PSP handheld, and the logical possibility the system "may be hampered by a lack of new games" when the handheld "goes on sale in Japan before yearend." According to the news article: "Sony has yet to send the final development kits for PlayStation Portable to any of its outside game publishers, said Yoshiko Furusawa, a spokeswoman with Sony Computer Entertainment in Tokyo. Sony had already sent the final kits to publishers for its best-selling PlayStation 2 home video-game console at a similar stage before its debut in March 2000, Furusawa said." Hirofumi Otsuki of Sega added: "We don't know if we'll meet Sony's schedule... PlayStation Portable details still seem to be in development."

2 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. SDK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The final SDK isn't out, but the pre-release SDK is. Expect little to no change between this version and the final version.

  2. "Final" dev kits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'd really like to see some of these non-final dev kits that are supposedly floating around. Konami, Digital Eclipse, and EA *may* have one, but us 3rd parties have been left out in the cold. Talk to anyone who is planning a PSP game about how their devsystem situation is, and unless their one of the giants (Digital Eclipse is huge in the world of crappy Game Boy games), they're waiting on the sidelines for hardware.

    Not having final hardware is a lot more eggregious than not being able to edit the dailies. If you don't have final hardware, you're essentially going to have to port the game that you've developed from your previous setup to the shipping hardware... Kind of like having to re-shoot large chunks of the movie. But most 3rd party developers don't even have that. Most 3rd party developers have been left high and dry for a long time. Storyboards, check. Script, check. Actors, check. Camera... Camera? Where's the camera?