GC: PSP Presentation

We sit with Sony and find out more about PSP Go! and 'Minis'

Sony announced a the PS3 price-drop and the new Slim model. So to give the hand-held a bit more detail they held a special presentation to a select few journalists this morning at GamesCom.

Surprisingly, very little was mentioned about the actual PSP Go – instead the hour long chin-wag was dedicated entirely to their new digital distribution model and of course, Minis. Minis are what Sony are calling their new range of downloadable titles that are intended for the PSP Go's inbuilt hard-drive, but will work with any older model of the PSP as well. They are so-called because they are intended to be small downloads with the maximum size for a Mini being 100mb (some are a lot smaller than this). Each Mini will be quick to load up letting players on the move get stuck straight into the action without waiting for a UMD to spin or huge amounts of data to be delivered first.

Personally, the concept looks sound and as we've seen with Apple and their iTunes store – there is plenty of demand for downloadable content to portable devices. Also it doesn't really take a genius to see that the future of UMD is going absolutely no-where (remember Sony went down this track some years ago with Mini-Discs as well).

So in order to get us excited about the up-coming catalogue of Minis – Sony invited a handful of developers from smallish game companies who are all currently working on PSP titles. The biggest one probably being Ash Monif, the CEO of Subatomic Studios who are currently working to bring FieldRunners to the Sony hand-held. FieldRunners isn't a particularly novel concept, but its slick design and simple gameplay for the iPhone has spawned hundreds of clones and achieved a place in the prestigious Time Magazine as one of the best games ever. For those who haven't played it, FieldRunners falls into the category of a “tower defence” game where the player is confronted by waves of enemies who are trying to get from point A to point B. By building towers, turrets or structures, the player must attempt to prevent any of the enemy from reaching their destination. The end result is an addictive and challenging strategy game where you find yourself constantly upgrading and strengthing your defences as the enemy gets tougher (or quicker).

FieldRunners was partially so successful on the iPhone and iPod Touch formats because the touch screen lent itself perfectly to the interface. Monif ensures us that they are re-jigged the controls to suit the PSP in a similar fashion. Players now navigate their cursor via the D-Pad and the analogue stick is used to zoom in or out. The left and right shoulder buttons let you scroll through your selection of turrents to build and X places them where your cursor lies.

And that's about it – the controls are brilliantly simple.

FieldRunners for the PSP is also going to be a bigger game that what we've currently seen, with it now including crisper graphics, enhanced sound, new turrets, more enemies, extra maps and a need for some new stratgeies too. An example of this is in one of the new maps called Frostbite, an icy map with a major twist. Normally in FieldRunners, enemy units get from one side of the screen to the other. But in FrostBite, enemies appear from all four sides and try to get to the middle. This can cause havoc to those who haven't given it enough forethought. Finally, just like on the iPhone, FieldRunners can be paused and saved at any point just incase your bus arrives on time; only to be resumed again at any point with just a couple of seconds delay. It's what the PSP should be all about – gaming when you want it.

We also got to have a chat with two other small indy development teams, one who is working on a game called Zombie Tycoon and the second, a game called Kahoots. Firstly Zombie Tycoon is a humorous pick up and play title where you control ravenous zombie hordes with another strategic element such as in FieldRunners. Although it hasn't had the time to be as polished as FieldRunners, the game does look entertaining... and who doesn't love zombies? The game does have a bit more traditional structure though and will include animated cut-scenes, in-game dialogue and a set of ten progressive levels to allow you to infest the entire planet with your undead army.

The other title, Kahoots, was especially unusual looking. Mainly because every graphic in the game is actually a real-life object that has been photographed and scanned in. The developer told us how they visited local craft shops and discount stores purchasing all sorts of things from buttons and beads to candy and random bits of cardboard. All of the “everyday items” are all animated with a stop-motion style and plays out like a platform romp with puzzle solving aspects.

Finally it was time for the big guns. Chris Gibbons, the executive producer from EA took to the podium to discuss their two new Mini games – Sudoku and Tetris. Many would complain that EA have taken the safe option by developing two classic games rather than coming up with a unique title for the new platform. Which is partially true. Sure they have added new visuals and some extra gameplay but everyone knows these games will sell. But it's important to note that the Minis catalogue is going to need classics like these regardless and who better to bring them to us than the massive might of EA Games? Users can guarantee that these two games will be quality and packed full of features too. Thankfully, EA Games did hint towards them bringing more interesting titles to the table shortly as well, so don't write them off just yet. Strangely enough though, there was no word on a Mini to come from Sony themselves. It seemed unusual to launch a new platform and not have a first party title to pitch along with it.



It's early days yet but Minis is clearly a step in the right direction for the PSP Go. It helps bridge that gap between Sony and Apple, especially if Sony get their act together and team up with Ericsson to develop the... PS-Phone? Sony must have their eager little eye on the amount of revenue generated to Apple through user developed content – but the question remains will they get the formula right to allow enough games to be developed on it? When queried about the cost to a wannabe PSP programmer, Sony were relatively tight-lipped about it. They mentioned a dev kit that was over a thousand Euros and weren't keen to discuss what cut of the profits they would take from a sucessful game. Apple have openly admitted they take 30% and their dev kit is only a fraction of the cost. But talking to the developers, they did mention that working with Sony was a fairly painless process and although the infrastructure isn't quite in place – the concept and technology certainly is.

Also some might be concerned about the 100mb cap, but the developers openly admitted that it wasn't a restriction at all. Instead they stated that a lot of games ideal for the PSP don't need to be very big in data size. Besides, we don't want to be sitting there watching a game download for hours – we just want to be in it hacking away at zombies or riding around on cougars. Now that I think about it, riding around on cougars would be an awesome game! Anyway, Sony are promising to have around 50 Minis available by the end of 2009 – with a mix of prices and genres. We can expect Minis to be launched on October 1st and they will be available via the PSN Store (and again as a reminder, these aren't just for the PSP Go).

NZGamer.com would like thank Activision, Capcom, Microsoft NZ, SCENZ, SEGA, THQ and Ubisoft for making this trip possible.

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