Grand Theft Auto for US PSP Launch

GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that a version of the popular Grand Theft Auto series (as well as a version of the Midnight Club 3 game) will be released around the date of the US/EU PSP launch. From the article: "Sony's extremely impressive technology has allowed Rockstar Leeds to do more on a handheld machine than we could have ever imagined ... We are very excited for gamers to experience these two genre-defining franchises in a fashion that could have never before been possible on a portable system."

Comments

DS and PSP

[th1ckasabr1ck]

"Sony's extremely impressive technology has allowed Rockstar Leeds to do more on a handheld machine than we could have ever imagined."

I like that quote a lot. People love talking about the innovation of the DS, but in my mind the PSP is just as innovative. The DS is combining PDA gaming with GBA gaming and wireless access. The PSP is shrinking the PS2 into a sleek little handheld. Both of these allow us to do things on that we have never been able to do on handhelds before.

That being said, I own a DS and have not been extremely impressed. I own Mario 64 and Feel the Magic. Mario is fun, but suffers greatly from the lack of an analog stick. I'll always prefer to play the N64 version because of this. Feel the Magic is a fun game, but extremely short and I felt like I was cheated out of a few bucks when I beat it so quickly. Also, the entire time I'm playing Feel the Magic I'm terrified that I'm going to end up with a scratched touch screen.

The touch screen may have some cool applications in gaming, but I think the choice to break up the device into two screens was a poor one. In Mario, the bottom screen is honestly more of a distraction than anything, and I almost with I could just shut it off (maybe I can?). I do realize that these are only the launch titles, and launch titles usually suck, but these are my honest early impressions.

I just sorta picked up the DS because I buy most consoles/handhelds, whatever. After seeing screenshots and videos of the PSP in action, I don't see any way I can possibly NOT own one.

This honestly did not start out as a DS/PSP thing, I swear!

Coup or Disaster in the Making?

[ayersrj]

I'm a big Nintendo fan, although I own all of the current generation systems and a DS.

GTA coming to the PSP could be a huge coup, I mean who wouldn't want to play GTA3 (or something with new content) as a portable.

Here's the potential disaster in the making, portables are generally marketed towards a younger crowd, although both Nintendo and Sony profess to be targeting an older demographic. What's going to happen then little timmy strolls into his school with a PSP with GTA on it. Hits the media, then it hits the fan.

The other potential disaster is that the PSP only lasts two hours with GTA in it. If Ridge Racers is only lasting three or so, I couldn't imagine what the more powerful games will do to the battery.

That being said, I'm a sucker for a gadget. Wipeout, GTA and Lumines should be enough for me to give it a shot. Especially if the price hits at $150. $250-$300 and I'll probably step back for awhile.

Streaming from disc

[clu76]

From the Article: One aspect of the Grand Theft Auto title for the PSP which will be watched carefully by other developers is how the game will handle the streaming of content from disc - something which the GTA titles on PS2 have relied heavily upon to create their seamless environments, but which runs the risk of crippling the battery life of a handheld device.

Streaming games and battery life is perhaps my largest concern about the PSP. I wonder if GTA:PSP will remain true to the originals by allowing players to explore these large environments at will. Or if Rockstar had to make a fundamental change to the game to keep it from eating up the battery.

Also curious to know if this is a port, semi-port, or a new game all together.

Little bit of irony for my friends

[Blackwulf]

My friends blasted me for buying a DS, becuase they have the belief that Nintendo always relies on their franchises way too much and that's why they won't bother with the system. They're not WRONG with what they're saying about there being a lot of Mario/Zelda/Metroid games, but their reasoning for poopooing the DS is because Nintendo seems to rely too much on existing games.

But they're stoked over the PSP, and Sony can do no wrong. However, every single game title that I've seen them go gaga over has been...existing franchises. (Gran Turismo, Metal Gear, GTA, Midnight Club, Ridge Racer...)

They don't exactly like it when I point out the irony. ("Why would I want to get a system where I can play an old and tired game with Mario in it where I can get the PSP and play Gran Turismo?")

I don't see it

[fm6]

Assuming that they're talking about the 3D games (the only GTA games most of us have even seen), it's difficult to see how this could work on a portable. First, the processing power needed to render that pocket universe is immense. (On a medium-power PC, you have to turn the rendering distance way down, or else it lags horribly trying to render buildings you can't even see.) But what really makes me skeptical is the difficulty of playing this kind of game on a very small screen. There's an incredible amount of detail, and I just don't see any way of scaling it down.

Re:I don't see it

[hollismb]

I don't see how your points are a factor. Considering the PSP's specs, it's perfectly capable of handling a large scale 3D environment in a game. There's plenty of capacity on one of those UMDs to support it, and the screen size has an adequate amount of resolution to show acceptable detail in a 3D world. It's not how big a screen is, remember, it's how close you are to it. Lastly, your point about rendering building and framerates on the PC don't really apply due to the unfixed nature of the PC. I'm sure they'd optimize it just fine for the fixed-system PSP, much like was done on the PS2 and Xbox versions.

Double Standard

[NanoGator]

Gee, whenever Nintendo releases a sequal to a franchise, it's bad, but it's great news for Sony!

Re:Double Standard

[NanoGator]

"Nintendo has worked it's franchises into the ground by re-using the characters in totally non-franchise related games."

So? Why is this bad? If the game's fun, the game's fun.

"When they release GTA Tennis then we can talk."

Actually, that sounds like fun. Imagine being a poor sport in that game. ;)

You know damn well that if Rockstar got lazy and just churned out GTA 5 6 and 7 with slightly different maps (i.e. Sonic the Hedgehog) you'd be bitching about it, too.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Define "worked it's [sic] franchises into the ground" a little more clearly. Specifically, I want to clarify the modifier "into the ground."

If you mean to imply that a Mario-branded Kart/Tennis/Golf game would sell better than the same Tennis game with no Mario branding, then clearly we are in agreement, and we can progress from there, keeping one other thing in mind: that the gameplay of the Kart/Tennis/Golf game is at its core quite good. The quality and the branding certainly do nothing to hurt sales, which is ultimately what EVERYBODY in this industry is all about. Citing an imaginary game called "GTA Tennis" as an example that Rockstar is in any way immune to using brand as a market device is as nonsensical as believing that Rockstar would pass up the opportunity to make such a game if they believed it would sell.

Now, if you mean to imply otherwise, I believe there may be some misunderstanding on your part that needs further clarification.

Idea here...

[Gothic_Walrus]

It's a stupid idea, but it's worth considering...

The article said nothing about the game being in 3D, and there aren't any screenshots of the game yet.

Isn't is possible that the GTA game is going to be top-down like the first two and the recent GBA game were?

That would definitely help to increase the battery life, with no need for streaming the cities or for intense 3D graphics... :)

Re:Idea here...

[MilenCent]

And indeed, I really liked Wind Waker's look, I thought it worked really well. Even better, the gameplay was just brilliant and really brought that feeling of exploration back to the series.

But the fact remains, the look of the game became something of a rallying cry for idiots. "Celda! Celda!" And there are a lot of idiots.

Re:It's not Rockstar North...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a common trend for big developers whose resources are expensive: Pass the work off to another team if there is any porting work involved. And you know what? Such ports usually suck, because the porting teams don't know what the heck the original developers had in mind. The porting team could suck, or they could be geniuses, but they simply aren't the original team, and the resulting work tends to suffer.

Konami gave the job of porting Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to the Saturn to their Nagoya team. It had some extra features (and some extra music, along with other cool bonuses), but is generally considered inferior to the original PlayStation version because of some slowdown and graphical hiccups. For a 2D game to be inferior on the Saturn (a 2D powerhouse compared to the PlayStation) takes some real fuckups. SOTN shares that distinction with very very few games, including a few sweet Japanese shooters.

Ubisoft gave the job of porting the original two Splinter Cell games to a Chinese-based porting studio. While the studio had a fair bit of experience with PS2 programming, their GameCube programming experience was non-existent until the first Splinter Cell game. That's why the GameCube version looks barely better than the PS2 version, as opposed to being nearly (or even completely) on par with the Xbox version. Resident Evil 4 shows us that better-than-Splinter Cell-level graphics are easily achievable on the Cube, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the work of this inexperienced team's basic efforts. That's why Ubisoft has promised to dedicate more resources to preparing all versions of Chaos Theory until they are ready, before releasing it on any platform. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm not so sure they're up to the task.

Capcom gave Nintendo the job of doing the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 themselves. That resulted in a game that was graphically impressive, but didn't handle anywhere nearly as fast or as tight as a real Street Fighter game.

Most recently, Namco gave an American-based Nintendo team the job of porting the old N64 version of Ridge Racer (RR64) to the Nintendo DS, in order to produce Ridge Racer DS in time for launch. What resulted was a near bit-perfect port of an old, unremarkable last-gen game with no enhancements and no changes, other than the control scheme. Meanwhile, Namco put out the PSP version of a brand-new Ridge Racer game themselves, and the results are far less disappointing. Cheap, Namco. You better make it up with those Nintendo DS versions of Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos, and Soul Calibur (along with the Pac-Man games that admittedly are very cool). Whoops, did I just mention the enhanced DS version of Soul Calibur on Slashdot Games...? Hush....

Anyway, what was my point? Oh yeah: Second-hand ports usually suck. After all, if you look at examples where the ported version was done by the original team for a different platform (like, for example, the Dimps team that does the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games for both PS2 and GameCube), you'll find that such works usually result in far superior games. (Really, DBZ Budokai is a fairly fun fighting game series, and with every version of the game, the GameCube upgraded versions are universally better than the older PS2 versions.)