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Opinion: Why Sackboy is PSP's last chance at a killer app

The widescreen view of my LittleBigPlanet

Opinion: Why Sackboy is PSP's last chance at a killer app
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PSP
| LittleBigPlanet

In the world of judo, you have to turn your opponents' strengths into weaknesses. It's ironic then that with PSP, Sony has tripped itself up with the device's best element - the widescreen.

The truth is, hand someone a PSP and they'll want one. In fact, people can't stop buying PSPs: over 12 million in 2008 and 50 million to date. It's a beautiful piece of consumer electronics: as nice as anything from Apple. Where it's failed however is what's shown - or not being shown - on that screen.

UMD movies worked for about 12 months before being killed off by a combination of cost and the availability of TV and films on Apple's App Store. Sony's also being trying to push various applications such as Skype, GPS, a bespoke PSP on-demand TV and video service (at least in the UK and Ireland). They're interesting but hardly popular.

You can also browser the internet, use MSN or Facebook, check RSS feeds or download podcasts. All are overly fiddly.

Of course, PSP is primarily a games machine, and plenty of games have been released for it, but unless you're part of the Japanese-obsessed niche that loves LocoRoco, Patapon and echochrome, you're probably limited to the likes of FIFA, Pro Evolution and GTA: Liberty City Stories. Now you can get bigger and better versions of those on your main console.

The bottom line is there's no Pokémon for PSP. Indeed, up to this point, PSP's killer app has been PSP, which is why Sony's sold a lot of machines but publishers haven't sold many games. That's why so many people view PSP as the failure that it's not.

To that extent, then, the recent announcement of PSP titles such as MotorStorm Artic Edge, Assassin's Creed, Rock Band and the like are welcome. They're not sufficient however.

It's the announcement of LittleBigPlanet for PSP that's really significant.

The reasons are various. It's a brilliant game that has already done much to bring PlayStation 3 to a new audience. There's also an existing library of user-generated content available on millions of PS3s around the world.

Enable people to pipe that lot into PSP - as well as piping PSP-generated content back out to PS3 - and you'll have the sort of groundswell that will have everyone dusting down their PSP-1000s and even breaking out depleted credit cards for PSP-3000s.

Indeed, the more you think about it, the more it's clear that done correctly LittleBigPlanet will be PSP's saviour.

It's a sort of a game, but it's also sort of a DIY playground that you share with friends, share with the world, mash up, strip down and laugh about. Just like PSP is sort of a games console.

LBP is inherently part of the PlayStation Network so it will drive PSP owners online (something they don't currently do), and being owned by Sony, you're not going to see it anywhere else.

Effectively, it's the western equivalent of Capcom's Monster Hunter - a series that has single-handed resurrected the PSP in Japan with its connected, co-op, monster-collecting gameplay, albeit presented in such a culturally-specific manner that no one outside of Japan has given it a second thought.

In turn though, the consequence of the failure of LittleBigPlanet will mark the continual slow decline of PSP as a viable platform.

It seems too late now to get people using the perfectly functional PlayStation Store, and PSP-PS3 connectivity is be too fiddly for the mainstream. And it's much too late for Sony to launch a proper PSP-exclusive killer app as Nintendo managed with Pokémon and its Game Boy handhelds.

Sackboy - it's all up to you now.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.