Develop '09: Fieldrunners coming to PSPgo

This week Brighton is playing host to the Develop conference, where members of the video game industry congregate in order to exchange cards and listen to each other talk. It isn’t usually a font of news for mere consumers like us (well, you) but SCEE’s head of developer relations Zeno Colaço has revealed a few interesting titbits to Develop’s Michael French.

Most notably, he’s revealed that a version of Subatomic Studios’s classic tower defence game Fieldrunners is coming to PSPgo. Apparently, more than 50 other studios are hard at work creating similar content for Sony’s latest handheld enterprise.

The appearance of Fieldrunners on PSPgo clearly signals Sony’s future direction. The company is making an inevitable move towards small, cheap games that can be developed quickly. In some ways, if you think about it, this new approach almost resembles Apple’s.

To the max.

Subatomic’s Ash Monif spoke up behind Sony’s revelation. "This initiative is about bringing the lighter, lower barrier content to the PSP that has been so successful in other categories.

"Part of that ‘snackability’ of the content is because you can deliver the content over WiFi super-fast. We’re making games that are just 20MB each, that’s less than a minute to download - instant gratification, snackable content. This is an opportunity for the premier indie developers - and I hope we represent that group - to come in and offer content that will fit the PSP."

The key questions are, will Fieldrunners cost the same on PSPgo, and will it be a very different game?