Saturday, December 30, 2006

"There aren't any good PSP games!"


This is probably the most commonly held mis-conception regarding the PSP. That there aren't any "good" games.

http://www.gamerankings.com currently lists 234 titles available for the PSP, naturally they can't all be bad, right?

I tend to break down game ratings by grade level, 90% and above is an A, 80% and above is a B, etc. Pretty much any game that gets an A or a B is above average and is worth playing. Similarly anything scoring below 70% (D) or 60% (F) is below average and not worth playing.

Pretty simple, right? So look at the scores:

A 1 0.43%
B 36 15.38%
C 78 33.33%
D 78 33.33%
F 41 17.52%

234

37 games score above average. Sure, gaming is a matter of personal taste, but that doesn't qualify as "no good games" by any stretch of the imagination. But how does this compare to the competition? The Nintendo DS?

A 3 1.35%
B 30 13.51%
C 51 22.97%
D 65 29.28%
F 73 32.88%

222

The DS has been on the market a little bit longer than the PSP so you'd expect it would have more games. You'd be wrong. It has fewer games and fewer games in the "above average" category. But it's also incredibly "bottom heavy". A whopping 138/222 games simply aren't worth even considering. That's 62%!

Putting it another way... For every title worth playing on the DS Lite there are 4.18 titles that are pretty much garbage. The PSP may have quite a few bad games as well (119/234 or 51%), but that comes out to one good game for every 3.22 bad games.

In short, when comparing the Sony PSP to the Nintendo DS, the PSP has more games, better games and a more favorable ratio of good games to bad games.

3 comments:

FanBusters said...

I didn't want to clutter the post with the full list of worthwhile PSP games, so here's the data from Gamerankings:

2005 Titles:
1. Lumines Ubisoft 90.10%
2. Wipeout Pure SCEA 88.80%
3. Ridge Racer Namco 88.00%
4. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories Rockstar Games 87.40%
5. Burnout Legends EA Games 86.90%
6. Virtua Tennis: World Tour Sega 86.00%
7. Pro Evolution Soccer 5 Konami 85.00%
8. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix Activision 83.30%
9. X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse Activision 83.00%
10. WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006 THQ 81.90%
11. Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee SCEA 81.80%
12. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo SCEA 81.50%
13. MLB SCEA 81.50%
14. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 EA Sports 80.80%

2006 Titles:
1. Tekken: Dark Resurrection Namco Bandai Games America 88.50%
2. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Konami 88.20%
3. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror SCEA 87.20%
4. Daxter SCEA 87.00%
5. LocoRoco SCEA 85.20%
6. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories Rockstar Games 85.20%
7. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Square Enix 83.80%
8. Mega Man Powered Up Capcom 83.40%
9. Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy LucasArts 83.40%
10. MLB 06: The Show SCEA 83.30%
11. SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 2 SCEA 83.10%
12. Lumines II Buena Vista Games 82.60%
13. OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast Sega 82.60%
14. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance Activision 81.80%
15. Gitaroo Man Lives! Koei 81.80%
16. Sega Genesis Collection Sega 81.60%
17. Race Driver 2006 Codemasters 81.00%
18. Mega Man Maverick Hunter X Capcom 80.50%
19. Metal Gear Acid 2 Konami 80.40%
20. Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX Capcom 80.30%
21. Madden NFL 07 EA Sports 80.30%
22. Passport to Paris SCEE 80.00%
23. Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth Square Enix 80.00%

Brian Chang said...

Its the lack of knowledge from the developers(I think) about the power and Limitations of the PSP. Developers are trying to make these complex games on a small handheld and it isnt working. No matter what Sony says the PSP CANNOT match PS2's graphics. The UMD's are a failure so what sony needs to do is make more original fun games that has its limitations.

Anonymous said...

What I really dont understand is why they do make few ports of ps2 games to the psp... but not a single port of a ps1 game to the psp.. there's tons of ps1 games I'd love to play on the psp, for example:
- abe's oddysee/exodus
- old wipeouts
- few other final fantasy titles
- loads of other rpg's like Legend of Mana or Tales of Destiny...
- Gran Turismo?!?!?!?! why is it taking so long for them to fix this..
- I could go on... but I think its clear