Since the release of God of War: Chains of Olympus in March 2008, not a
single PSP game has cracked the monthly top 10 list of US best-sellers
from the NPD Group. In April, competition in the portable space heated
up with the release of Nintendo's DSi, which offers low-cost,
direct-download games like WarioWare: Snapped. Now, Sony appears to be
trying to reverse its fortunes through a new development model that
promotes affordable, easily downloadable titles.
Speaking with British magazine Develop,
Sony revealed that it hopes to spark a flurry of new games for its
portable platform through several new measures. The platform-holder
will allow for lower-cost games by releasing cheaper PSP development
kits and streamlining the development process. (Previously, Sony
announced it would cut the price of its development kit by 80 percent.)
Sony also raised the possibility of non-gaming applications coming to
the handheld.
"We're introducing new initiatives for the PSP which take it beyond
traditional gaming, but still include elements from gaming, and also
includes new developers," said the head of developer relations for Sony
Computer Entertainment Europe Zeno Colaco, to Develop.
Sony claims that more than 50 developers are currently working on new
creations for the PSP, with a new, specially branded section of the
PlayStation Store to market the new games. Many of the developers are
from developing countries, like India's Gameshastra, according to Develop.
With the new move, the PlayStation Store may look a bit more like the
iPhone App Store, which allows developers to create all manner of
gaming and non-gaming applications--some 65,000 to date. However, Sony also mentioned that it wouldn't make its software development kit public like the iPhone's.
"It is still a professional environment, you still need a development
kit and you still need to have investment and a team. But it can be a
small team," Colaco said.
