The Handheld Struggle

Although the Wii tends to attract the most criticism for its dearth of quality third-party games, I think the DS has run into the same problem, in recent times. Pardon my ignorance, if you think I’ve made any great oversight, but this year there have only been three games on the ageing handheld that can be deemed essential – Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story, The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and GTA: Chinatown Wars. Professor Layton rolls on in typical form, but the slate of upcoming titles isn’t exactly looking too rosy, either: Level-5’s Studio Ghibli collaboration Ni no Kuni impresses, as does Capcom’s Okamiden, but I think the console suffered from having many of its best – or biggest – titles released in its first two years.

Nintendogs, Animal Crossing: Wild World, New Super Mario Bros., Brain Training and Mario Kart DS were all released before 2007, all to immense sales momentum. Since then, the calibre of titles coming from Nintendo has lessened, leaving it to third parties to help the format recover. Truth be told, however, the amount of games that appeal has really waned; in a sense, I think developers are cooling towards the console.

The PSP, on the other hand, is in an even greater predicament. Always considered an also-ran due to the ocean of shovelware produced by even the best third-party developers, it’s only this year that it’s managed to regain some ground thanks to Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Rock Band Unplugged, Resistance Retribution and the excellent LittleBigPlanet. Sadly, we see that despite the best efforts of the talented developers behind these projects, PSP titles barely register on the UK All-Formats Chart or the NPD numbers in the US. In addition, the PSP Go has muddied the waters of what a PSP title is supposed to be – is it a format that’s supposed to support full games, or downloadable bitty crud, like the majority of iPhone apps? Nobody’s quite sure, given that the new iteration of the machine has essentially belly-flopped at retail.

Perhaps what’s needed is clarification, by Nintendo and Sony on their plans for the handheld devices. Now that both the DS and PSP are five years old, it’s not unreasonable to expect new handhelds from Sony and Nintendo in the next few years, but until they make a move, it might be worth reiterating the potential of both consoles to third-party developers.

By Samuel Roberts: X360 Magazine