Up to 7,000 PSOne-to-PSP titles by 2007, reports UK PSP Magazine
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Jun 28th 2006 at 12:55PM }
"Riiiiiidge Raaaaacer!" Kaz Hirai's famous declaration at Sony's E3 media breifing might not have garnered much applause, but, according to UK PSP Magazine, there are plenty of other emulated PlayStation titles (for the PSP) that will. These five AAA titles should be available when the emulation service launches:
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Silent Hill
- Tomb Raider
Forget PSOne, the PSP has officially become the first, truly portable PlayStation. We knew the thing would find its calling sooner or later...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pii3.14 @ Jun 28th 2006 1:00PM
THAT would make the PSP a worthwhile purchase. The ability to play SOTN or FFVII anywhere, anytime? Sign me up.
Zacky V @ Jun 28th 2006 1:01PM
Those are AAA? I hated ever one of those
duscrom @ Jun 28th 2006 1:05PM
You may have hated them, but Sales numbers and industry/cultureal impact disagree with you.
C. Grant @ Jun 28th 2006 1:06PM
Armageddon was a big-budget movie? I hated it.
Varian @ Jun 28th 2006 1:07PM
This will not be the 'killer app' that people are hoping for with the PSP.
1) These games are old. Retro games never have been system sellers.
2) Most of the PS1 Generation games haven't aged well.
3) These games aren't built for a handheld. When a game is built for a handheld, it has plenty of saves and is designed more around a quick nature. This could prove to be a barrier.
Nostalgia is fueling people's perspective on this now. When they are actually playing the PS1 games (which they could do anyway with the PS2 but now on a smaller screen), the hype will just drain away from this very fast.
Thomas Werewolf @ Jun 28th 2006 1:10PM
That's great, but you know what? These are console games. Sony just doesn't seem to get what a portable is for. Pick-up-and-play, gaming-on-the-go. Yeah, it would be awesome to play FFVII on the PSP, but where are you most likely to be playing it? On the train to work in the morning? Better find that save point before the last stop, or save and quit early and have to (ugh!) read for the last 10 minutes of the ride.
More likely, these games will be played sitting on your couch, just like they were 10 years ago. And at that point, why not play it on your TV with the copy you already bought?
riffgod @ Jun 28th 2006 1:10PM
This may finally make the PSP worth owning.
If they don't expect us to pay gobs of money for each of these titles that we already own. Knowing Sony however, I have a feeling they will expect that from us. They have already tried to get us to purchase movies on DVD, UMB, and now Blu-ray. How many times do they expect us to pay for the same thing?
I got off the subject here, and for that I am sorry.
Todd @ Jun 28th 2006 1:10PM
Well, I guess that's one way to respond to the plea of more quality games. However, I wonder about how these are going to be sold. Downloaded on to expensive memory sticks or repackaged and sold on UMDs. Either way leaves something to be desired.
Ethan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:12PM
sounds awesome, I never had the PS1, my relatives bought me the N64 that generation, and I was only like 5, so thats the only one I got. I missed out on alot by not ever playing some of those games, but hopped right on when the PS2 rolled around. I'll be anxious to see what started the whole Playstation revalation. and what does armageddon have to do with anything?
MosquitoControl @ Jun 28th 2006 1:12PM
I never had the original PS and spent extremely little time with it.
Extremely might not be a harsh enough word. No one I knew had one, my entire college was N64.
But I'd consider a PSP for SOTN and Bushido Blade - two games I've been dying to try.
Ryan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:12PM
I'm interested to see how they take games that require two analog joysticks and convert them to work well with the PSP's single joystick.
MosquitoControl @ Jun 28th 2006 1:13PM
On second thought - that's stupid of me.
Why would I want to play them on the go, and pay $300 for them?
I can just get a $10 used PS and buy the games used somewhere...
Josh Berry @ Jun 28th 2006 1:14PM
Just because the game wasn't originally designed with a quicksave option doesn't mean it couldn't easily be added by the emulation layer. Not that I'll argue this will "save" the PSP, but I don't see this as being any different than the rereleases of the Final Fantasy games for the GBA. And I've loved every one of those.
(Honestly, I'm probably just drooling over being able to play SOTN on the train to work.)
Baboon @ Jun 28th 2006 1:14PM
#9 Ryan-
My guess, the same way they have all the other games that needed two joysticks... poorly.
Jason W @ Jun 28th 2006 1:15PM
I do think this will wear thin after a few months, but come on 7000 games. Thats cool. Now I made the mistake of plucking in time crisis on the ps2 last week. It looked like crap, but was still fun to play. Shrink it down from my 42inch hd tv to a 4.3 inch screen and it could look cool again. These games are all about the quality of some of the DS titles and I play the hell out of those. Not to mention once I got the DS Movie Advance card I spent weeks playing old Nes games on the DS. I still do to this day.
This could work. I hope it does. I may rebuy a PSP. Man what is it with Sony. I sell off their products left and right then rebuy them every year or so.
Christopher7xii @ Jun 28th 2006 1:16PM
"Nostalgia is fueling people's perspective on this now. When they are actually playing the PS1 games (which they could do anyway with the PS2 but now on a smaller screen), the hype will just drain away from this very fast."
but when they're playing the games... they've already purchased them, and it doesn't matter then =)
Eitherway, GBA's NES retro games sold pretty damn well. Retro sells, and I know I'm looking more forward to this or playing SNES games on a Wii than anything else. Hell, I'm playing FF Dawn of Souls on my DS right now. Being able to play Final Fantasy Tactics on my PSP will be awesome. Tactics Advance blew ass by comparison.
As for saying PS1 games don't age well... It really depends on the game. I can sit down and play destruction derby, any Final Fantasy, original Tomb Raider, Symphony of the Night without flinching... Only ones that age bad are any non FPS/action game that was just put out to appeal to the manly-man sports gamer crowd. Ya know, the ones with no creativity, originality, or reason to exist even when they first come out? Generally those games only sell cuz they're "pretty" at the time of their release, as opposed to being depthy. Doom3 comes to mind. That game has already faded into nothing, it was just eye candy. Stuff like the first Ages of Empires, Star Wars Dark Forces: Jedi Knight, Diablo 2 or even Battlefield 1942... Those titles can get picked up whenever and played and enjoyed because they're solid games. Not the prettiest pieces of work by todays standards, but fun. Basically, I don't mind returning to fun games if it means taking a step back off the graphics.
Tanya @ Jun 28th 2006 1:17PM
Hot dog! Silent Hill on the PSP is wonderful news! And the rest are not too shabby. I know quite a few people that will be thrilled to have FF VII on the PSP. This is good news. Now for the price of these games.....
Yoshi Likes Boys @ Jun 28th 2006 1:18PM
Since when did it become chic to use Final Fantasy as a vessel for homophobic garbage?
And this is SWEET, in my opinion, the PS1 had the second strongest library of any system in existence (Behind GBA and SNES), so making this library available to PSP owners adds a tremendous amount of value to the little wide-screened bundle of joy.
And it's EXCELLENT that SOTN is on there, after all, that's the greatest game to ever hit the system (and deserving of a spot in any top 10 list).
Vash @ Jun 28th 2006 1:18PM
Sony would probably figure out a quick save method, just like any emulater out there.
Kamalot @ Jun 28th 2006 1:20PM
I'm not re-buying a PSP to te-buy all my PS1 games.
Sorry Sony. You missed the boat with the PSP. Why not spend some effort actually making half-decent games for your upcoming console instead of crap like Untold Legends?
Christopher7xii @ Jun 28th 2006 1:20PM
Oh, and people whining about "pick up and go" vs console gaming...
ITS CALLED SLEEP MODE.
Flick a switch, your game doesn't disappear. Later, a day or two even, flick the switch, game picks right back up where you left it. Sheesh.
As for format, think on it. He said "In addition, UK PSP Magazine reports that up to 7,000 PlayStation titles will be available for download by the end of 2007." - So it's going to be download to mem-stick, which I'm fairly certain they already stated. There's no way they'd put out 7,000 UMDs by Spring. I'm just wondering if the emulator is going to be on UMD or run straight from the stick? My guess is a UMD, more $$, frees up room on the stick.
DBX00 @ Jun 28th 2006 1:22PM
Why are people always ready to jump on anything Sony does lately? As long as they don't sell these downloads for outrageous prices it should be a good ADDITION to the PSP arsenal. Clearly, Nintendo dominates the handheld market, but the PSP isn't doing too badly in the market either.
Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of games that I would happily purchase for download and play while I'm on vacation or a long train ride. I don't necessarily think this will be a huge console seller, but it does offer a happy medium for those people in the homebrew community to update their PSPs. Sony has listened and responded to those individuals with something that could turn out to be a reasonably good product.
Who knows, you might even be able to transfer purchased games to your PS3 or vice versa. That would open up an interesting little handheld/console feature.
darryl @ Jun 28th 2006 1:24PM
"When a game is built for a handheld, it has plenty of saves and is designed more around a quick nature."
"Better find that save point before the last stop, or save and quit early and have to (ugh!) read for the last 10 minutes of the ride."
I'm still amazed by so-called "gamers" (rather haters) that are not aware of...
SUSPEND!
Imagine that... you can suspend the device and then...
RESUME!
OMFG! Technology...
Martin @ Jun 28th 2006 1:25PM
Sony has made plenty of broken promises, and I bet this is one of them. Have 3rd parties even signed on to this. How many first party games does Sony have for the PS1??? Around 15-20 probably. so around 7000 of the games that they are stating have to be 3rd party. I don't know about you, but I just don't believe that all these games will really be available, because I cannot see all these 3rd parties already on the bandwagon. And not only that, there are game franchies that switched hands and what not and diferent companies that hold different licenses for different characters now.
If the magazine recieved this tip from a source from Sony, Sony really needs to quit lying. If they just made up the tip, sorry, but it is more likely just fanboy dream!
Ethan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:26PM
christopher, it wll all be from the stick.
darryl @ Jun 28th 2006 1:26PM
"I'm not re-buying a PSP to te-buy all my PS1 games."
...and I'm sure you feel the same way about Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console right?
kevin @ Jun 28th 2006 1:27PM
The game will not be stored on your in system memory. It's impossible to fit Final Fantasy on to that. It'll be most likley stored on your memory card, but I find it hard to believe that they can emulate FFVII to fit on a 1 gig memory stick. I mean the game was 3 disks.
Ethan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:31PM
Martin, yeah, I know what you're saying, I'm sure these developers wouldn't want to pick up some quick change by writing there signature on something. (sarcasm)
bm @ Jun 28th 2006 1:32PM
"I'm interested to see how they take games that require two analog joysticks and convert them to work well with the PSP's single joystick."
There barely were any on the PSX. The Dual Shock was just an old PSX controller with two analogue sticks tacked on as a kneejerk reaction to the N64 controller (sort of like what we're seeing with motion sensing now), released fairly late in the PSX's life. Even if some games had analogue support, they were always made to be compatible with the old digital controller. The only exceptions I can think of atm would be Ape Escape and Quake 2. So, yeah, controls won't be a problem.
John H. @ Jun 28th 2006 1:32PM
In addition, UK PSP Magazine reports that up to 7,000 PlayStation titles will be available for download by the end of 2007.
HYPE!
The key words here are "up to." Sony could release one game under this system and still fulfill the letter of this statement. And if different region releases count as separate releases, then even that number could be inflated by "up to" a factor of three!
Playable PS1 games could be really cool for the PSP, but let's see what the actual number is first. Remember, Sony doesn't have the rights to just release any PS1 game, there are many old titles to track down the rights for. (Wii's Virtual Console system could be said to have the same drawback.)
DBX00 @ Jun 28th 2006 1:33PM
Martin,
A licensing agreement may allow for the sale of software on different mediums. Therefore, regardless of the medium to which the software is sold on, the parties get their respective 'royalties' for the purchase.
It's easy to make the claim that something is vaporware, but we really have no idea how easy or difficult it may be to emulate the PS1. They could have developed a emulator that simply works for 99.9% of the PS1 titles making it EASY to distribute all of them at once. Either way, I'm looking forward to downloading some games and having this feature for my PSP.
I just wish they would hurry up and offer movie streams, tv shows, and music downloads.
Ethan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:37PM
I would like to take this chance to thank James Ransom-Wiley for actually posting some REAL NEWS on this site for once, instead of romours and opinions.
Ethan @ Jun 28th 2006 1:39PM
"I just wish they would hurry up and offer movie streams, tv shows, and music downloads." well you'll have to wait until the PS3 comes in order to get that feature also. Location free TV will relly boost PS3 and PSP sales during this next gen.
DarkMavis @ Jun 28th 2006 1:40PM
@ darryl
Um, the Wii isn't a portable gaming platform so don't compare it to the PSP. Also, the PS1 system is STILL being sold. My local Best Buy and Circuit City even carry old PS1 games so I fully get what Kamalot is saying. Why would you buy a copy of a game you already own? As for the Wii downloadable content I think it's safe to say the content is much more retro and cool. I'd much rather play a copy of SMB than a copy of Tomb Raider. Especially when Tomb Raider AND the PS1 are readily available.
Think before you post....
David @ Jun 28th 2006 1:41PM
Yeah people love the Wii's virtual console and call it a great idea but somehow think this is a bad idea. It makes no sense...and you don't need to save on the psp you can just put on sleep mode and come back even days later.
I'm expecting to be able to play a few titles that were considered great but that never came stateside. Tobal No.2 is the top one on that list...I never got to play it but every critic said it was the best fighting game on the ps1. I hope we could buy that one for the psp.
I'm actually playing Chrono Cross right now and that game doesn't have any aging problems. The story rocks, graphics are good and the gameplay even manages to be innovative even today. I'm sure there are more hidden gems like these one on the ps1 library. (Eihander on the go would be great!)
Martin @ Jun 28th 2006 1:41PM
Oh ok, for everyone doubting me, than I guess Wii is being released with way more titles since they don't have to worry about 3rd parties. Sony does not sell the games, and they have no control over them. The companies pay a fee to Sony to allow them to distribute their games in stores to be used on their system, not the other way around!!!!! I am sure that some companies will be on board, if they feel it will be profitable to them. But this is the same challenge the Wii is facing with their virtual console. Unless the PSP plays it from the original disk, some kind of agreement has to be made to allow these games to be sold on this unit!!!!
ben @ Jun 28th 2006 1:42PM
I totally agree with no. 1.
As long as they have Driver 1 and 2 for download, I will be fine. I love that game.
striderhayasa @ Jun 28th 2006 1:42PM
I don't believe that all of those 3rd parties signed up for this either. Also in reguards to what this means for the PSP, it's an decent idea to give people incentive to play the PSP but it would be an awesome idea if the PSP had a better library to begin with. This smacks of desperation.
The Virtual Console is not quite the same because Nintendo has a catalog of games that Sony can't match period. Sega has a catalog of games that Sony can't match for that matter. VC is just a better value in terms of what can be played on it in addition to the full compatiblilty with the GC library.
With that said, I would consider picking up a PSP depending on the price of the downloads. I have to wonder exactly how would we play a lot of these games considering 2 shoulder buttons and a analog are missing, the d-pad is f%^k up and the analog nub is not quite as good as a dedicated anlog stick....we'll see.
MosquitoControl @ Jun 28th 2006 1:43PM
"I would like to take this chance to thank James Ransom-Wiley for actually posting some REAL NEWS on this site for once, instead of romours and opinions."
Man, you really are biased towards Sony.
This is rumor. Up to 7,000 games? Well yeah, that's how big the library is, but do you really think Sony will offer 95% of PS games for emulation? Distribution of that alone would be mind-boggling.
So it's got some fact, but it's also got some overblown predictions and rumors that will never be true.
Much like pretty much every other news item here. Seeing as how this is a news and rumors site...
Panda]307 @ Jun 28th 2006 1:49PM
Suddenly I feel a deep appreciation for a company that has so cruelly abused us in the last few months...But the track record of Sony here (PS3, Wii controller theft, etc) makes me curious of what exctly the cost to us gamer is. On the face it seems well and good, but I can't help but be a skeptic at this point. I guess the only thing we have to worry about is the cost, but I'm worried in general about the way Sony has been going. Maybe it's just me.
qrayg @ Jun 28th 2006 1:49PM
Pick-up-and-play?
These games are obviously going to be emulated. Did you ever hear of save state? That would solve the "saving often on a portable" issue.
I'm more worried about the lack of L2 and R2 buttons. Some of my favorite PS1 games require those buttons.
bassbeast @ Jun 28th 2006 1:50PM
Forget the second analog stick for a moment, how are we supposed to play games with only one set of shohulder buttons?
Something tells me that this isn't well-thought-out, and am I the only one who thinks this is knee-jerk to the Virtual Console, only it's not been totally thought-out?
ElChibo @ Jun 28th 2006 1:51PM
I dont see how thats right with Ridge Racer not playable at launch. They demo'ed it live on stage and it was fine. My question is how will they have L2 and R2 buttons.
CapAmerica @ Jun 28th 2006 1:55PM
I think this list is BS, Sounds like a PSP Fanboys wish list.
And if its true we are going to run into a shit load of problems with any games that use R2, L2 and 2 Anolog sticks.
And really why would Sony release multiple copies of the same game? All you need to do is list 1 version.
Andrew @ Jun 28th 2006 1:57PM
I'm sure game distribution will be just like downloading the Loco Roco demo, which is a really fun game by the way. Of course, if folks like Kamalot ever decide to leave the house, then they might be interested in PORTABLE versions of PS1 games.
Night Elve @ Jun 28th 2006 2:02PM
Heh so "Gamers" have to bitch about everything.
@ 5.
Well Nintendo Portable Systems has a lot of remakes so why this is good for Nintendo but when Sony does something like this is bad?
Anyway this a great thing because im gonna be able to play FFVII, SOTN, Resident Evils on my PSP at least for me this is a good thing.
Big Ed @ Jun 28th 2006 2:06PM
It's nice to see that Sony is thinking of original titles for their PSP, oh wait...
Jedediah Johnson @ Jun 28th 2006 2:11PM
When the most exciting thing coming to a $300 handheld is paying for games two generations old, then something is wrong with the gaming industry.
josh @ Jun 28th 2006 2:11PM
As someone else pointed out, the FF games are generally many discs... I think that the FF games, at least, must be on UMDs, not for download. What kind of a card would you gonna need to store them? How much does a 2 GB memory stick cost? It just seems like it'd be cheaper to have them on UMDs
Christopher7xii @ Jun 28th 2006 2:13PM
"but I find it hard to believe that they can emulate FFVII to fit on a 1 gig memory stick. I mean the game was 3 disks."
Each disc is about 500mb average for the FF7 games (not full). That's 1500mb, or about 1.2gigs. With modern compression and what-not (Since we all know cutscenes take up the majority of the storage), and also scaling everything to a lower resolution, I have no doubts of them being able to do it...
Also, why would you need all three discs on your memory stick at once?
=====
As for the L2/R2 thoughts... I was always under the impression they could like... I dunno, use the analog stick or Dpad(whichever isnt in use) to do the L2/R2. Like left on the analog nub = L2, right on the nub = R2.
As for 2 analog sticks... They'll probably do the same route they've been going... the face buttons functioning as a second Dpad... poorly.
That or they just make a second PSP with an L2/R2 button and second analog nub already.