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PSP Devs Should Pony Up
President of development house 'Ready at Dawn' Didier Malenfant has given a short interview to GamesIndustry.biz. In the piece, he lays out his feeling that developers are to blame for the lackluster title library of Sony's handheld console. From the article: "'Everything is compromised, and it bugs the hell out of me when you hear a lot of developers saying, Well, we can't do this that way because it's a handheld game, or We can't do this because it doesn't have a second analog stick.' 'Those are all excuses,' Malenfant continued - observing that the original PSone controller didn't have any analog sticks, 'And there were great games on that.'"
'Everything is compromised, and it bugs the hell out of me when you hear a lot of developers saying, Well, we can't do this that way because it's a handheld game, or We can't do this because it doesn't have a second analog stick.' 'Those are all excuses,' Malenfant continued - observing that the original PSone controller didn't have any analog sticks, 'And there were great games on that.
This guy understands what's going on.
The Gameboy Advance (SP) has one directional pad, two regular buttons, and two shoulder buttons. Yet, we get brilliant software for it, and it's only sold, what, a few dozen million systems?
The DS, ignoring the touch screen, only boasts an extra two buttons. Though I guess the industry has proven that you really can't do anything with those things, huh, guys?
I think it's more that the developers that are trying to utilize the power that the PSP possesses are too used to having all sorts of controls and control combos associated with it. It would be as if Amazon decided to boot its store and just make a book review site. Sure, they could do it, but they couldn't make just a book review site- eventually they'd turn it right back into the Amazon store, because they don't have any constraints, and are used to the bigger feel.
But you don't need a large amount of controls to have a good game. I've been playing Wario Ware, Inc. for a few weeks now, and at any time it is using one of the regular buttons and the d-pad at most during gameplay. And it's quite a fun game.
Another part of the problem is that too many developers may be trying to continue the "PSP is just a system to port to" thought process that seems to abound (I've seen few original games that aren't ports or rehashes). When going from a Splinter Cell game on the PS2 to the PSP, of course you're going to lose something because of the new layout. So, make a new stealth game. One that isn't Splinter Cell (yes, I know that's hard, bear with me a minute) and fashion it such that it works with the controls.
Sony needs to open up the development on the PSP.
1. Make development kits available.
2. Allow PSP's to run homebrew. Now I don't mean stolen ISOs or the like.
3. Start a community site so players can upload games.
3a. Offer the ability for a homebrew(r) to charge for their game ($1 here, $1 there).
3b. Sony can get a cut, profit for everyone!
-zariok-