Remembering the PSP

We are less than a week away until Sony's newest venture in the portable space, the PlayStation Vita lands on store shelves.  As gamers look to the future, I would like to take a look at Sony's first foray into the portable gaming space, the PlayStation Portable (PSP for short).  Give my views on what the PSP did right and what went wrong considering the system has been dead in the water for years now.

Released on March of 2005, the PSP had a slow start with a decent number of games.  There were a few original games such as Lumines and Crush, but the majority of the games on the platform were either ports of console games or a portable entry in the well-established franchises.  All the games I personally own for the PSP are from the latter.  For the first few years, the PSP started to build a much bigger library with some pretty good exclusives, much of them later ported to PS2 and PS3.  Around 2008, many other video game publishers pulled their full support from the PSP and the library shrivelled to crazy small proportions. You can count on one hand the number of worthwhile exclusives (not re-releases or ports) released for the PSP between 2008 and now.  It is absolutely ridiculous.  Even Sony pushed the PSP to side by putting more emphasis on their better selling products, the PS2 and PS3.  Yes, Sony did release the PSP Go in 2009, but considering how bad that new iteration of the PSP plummeted Sony likes to believe it never existed.  There were many other problems with the PSP such as the dead-on arrival UMD disc format or how easy it is to hack the machine.  One of the biggest problems is the original design of the machine.  The PSP 1000 is one heavy handheld that will hurt anybody's hands after playing it for just 30 minutes to a hour.  The weight problem was addressed with future iterations of the PSP.  The other design flaw is with analog nub.  It was a small cumbersome thing that just did not feel good on your thumb and the lack of a second nub made it difficult to play certain games on the PSP such as action games or shooters.  While there is a lot wrong with the PSP, I will say there are some incredible games for the device.  The PSP is home to my top two favourite racing games, Ridge Racer and Burnout Legends.  Ridge Racer alone is reason enough for me to hold onto my PSP.  You will fall in love with its incredible arcade racing, infectious J-Pop soundtrack and numerous unlocks.  The PSP is the only system you will be able to find Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night and both Power Stone games on the same UMD.  It is also the only place to find the excellent Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

When all is said and done, the PSP will go down in video game history as a failure.  As the handheld that introduced me to Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Burnout, Ridge Racer and Tekken, the PSP does hold a special place in my heart, but you will never hear me say it was close to success.  Hopefully Sony used this seven year experience to not make the same mistakes with the PS Vita.  While Sony still has not proven to me that they will support this system if it doesn't sell well, we just have to wait and see as the Vita lands on store shelves in the coming weeks.