The PSP has a solid line up this year, but how many upcoming games will be available as digital downloads. The PSP Go doesn’t have a UMD drive and Sony has yet to announce a solution for physical UMD games. At E3 I asked a bunch of publishers what their plans are for the system.
Sony Computer Entertainment America plans to release all future first party games as downloadable and retail titles. That means you’ll be able to play games like Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, and Echochrono on the slimmer and trimmer PSP Go.
Square Enix doesn’t have any plans to release a downloadable version of Dissidia: Final Fantasy yet. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is sure to be another hot PSP title. Will it be a downloadable game too? “We can say for sure that there will be a UMD version,” said Yu Namba, Project Lead at Atlus. “I don’t know if we will be releasing it simultaneously digitally on the PlayStation Store.”
Koei plans to release legacy games possibly previous Dynasty Warriors games on the PlayStation Store, but as of now do not have any plans to release Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce or the upcoming Warriors Orochi 2 as downloadable games. A representative from Tecmo explained Undead Knights will not be released as a downloadable game on day one either. Tecmo is taking a wait and see approach before pursuing a downloadable strategy.
Many publishers explained releasing a UMD game simultaneously as a downloadable game means the title will have to go through another round of testing.
All hope isn’t lost! Xseed is more optimistic about the PSP Go. Half-Minute Hero, a lightning fast RPG developed by Marvelous, and Lunar: Silver Star Harmony could make their way on the PlayStation Store. “I think both,” Jun Iwasaki, President of Xseed said. “Sony recommended publishers to prepare downloadable and UMD. We asked GameArts and Marvelous to prepare both versions. Maybe we will launch a downloadable and a UMD as well, but this is not confirmed yet.”
Namco Bandai appears to be backing the PSP Go with Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny. While a downloadable version was not announced at E3, Japanese website 4gamer has a video of Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny running on the new hardware.
