Sony wants to bring retro, non PlayStation games to PSP PSN
More PSOne games and third party back catalogues could be coming
Wii owners have gleaned a lot of nostalgic use from the Virtual Console service, with its ever expanding catalogue of retro and third party titles. Now Sony’s sudden and exciting renewed interest in the PSP looks as though it could evolve the handheld’s PSN access into something similar.
Sony’s head of marketing John Koller has been talking up his desire to bring more PSOne titles to the PSP PSN store, but also to expand its range to include the back catalogues of third party publishers.
“PSOne is included, but everything is on the table,” Koller told MTV Multiplayer. “We look for some of those big hits from all of the past games in their history and look for ways we can bring them over.
"It’s not always easy. There’s obviously technical areas that need to be bridged. But when those are solved, consumers will see a wide variety of retro games and brand new games coming to PSN.”
There are already a large number of PSOne titles available to the Japanese PSP user, and Sony is also hoping to provide more conformity between the PS3’s PSN and that of the PSP, with handheld versions of games like flOw and PixelJunk Monsters.
Most important, however, is that Sony appears to be trying to break away from its staunchly insular personality, and is inviting third party publishers to adapt their back catalogues to the PSP download service.
Coupled with the sudden influx of hot new titles announced for Sony’s handheld console, if this new approach to getting games (that people actually want to play) onto the PSP via digital download is handled properly, Sony could finally be on the verge of resurrecting the grossly ignored platform.
