Please port your Game Engine to PSP

[ivo.burkart]

Hi. The PSP would be an ideal platform for 3d based andventure games in episodes (episodes via psn store and bonus umd at the end of a season)

So long

[DjNDB]

I don't know much about the PSP except some technical data i am just looking up, but I think this wouldn't work well for several reasons.

I don't think that many people would like to play it on the PSP. Therefore the development effort would not be worth doing it. Supporting another platform includes a lot of risks, and could reduce the time available for the already supported systems, except when new employees are hired and get aquainted with TTGs development tools. The first costs a lot of money, the second a lot of time.

The PSP has a really modest resolution. 480 × 272 would make everything very small. but at least the Aspect ratio doesn't make it even worse. 480x270 would be the closest 16:9 resolution.
Here's an example in that resolution.

It doesn't look too bad, but i don't know if it would be fun to play that way. Not to forget that it would be even smaller, because the Display is only 4,3 inch. You can measure the image on your display to get the idea.

This one i can only guess, but it is possible that the performance would be terrible. However it might be that it has some efficient chips for handling 3D GUI. The requirements for the application level computations, such as moving objects are probably not too high for it to handle.
In any case a lot of code optimizing especially for that plattform might be necessary, which would require experienced and therefore expensive personal, or developers who don't mind spending several month on learning how to develop for the PSP properly and efficiently.

I am sure you can now imagine that it's not as simple as pressing a button or running a cross compiler over the same code. The PSP doesn't support DirectX, which would result in a lot of development effort on the GUI level.

[demonfoo]

Originally Posted by DjNDB

The PSP doesn't support DirectX, which would result in a lot of development effort on the GUI level.

Funny, neither does the Wii. Yet Telltale does support it. If Telltale's confining themselves to only platforms that support DirectX (which would be Windows and the XBox 360), there's not really a lot of growth room there, is there? You gotta grow, man.

[DjNDB]

Originally Posted by demonfoo

Funny, neither does the Wii. Yet Telltale does support it. If Telltale's confining themselves to only platforms that support DirectX (which would be Windows and the XBox 360), there's not really a lot of growth room there, is there? You gotta grow, man.

You should read that statement in it's context.

It's not about DirectX alone, it's about whether porting the game is worth the effort, which is even higher when the GUI has to use a different API.

It's worth rewriting it, when you expect to sell the product well on a certain platform. I guess that the wii is more promising than the PSP regarding that.

[ivo.burkart]

The PSP has a surprisingly powerful 3d chip and believe me, its great to just get it out of your pocket and play monkey island for a while (replaying the curse of monkey island via scummvm at the moment)

as for the expensive developers:
dear telltale, send me the 3d engine source code and ill port it to the media engine, maybe for free games for lifetime :-)

ivo

[Will]

I will never say never. Admittedly, it probably isn't first on our list of platforms, but it could happen.

[bugzbunny90]

dont underestimate psp ..if they can port GTA and God of WAR ..monkey shouldnt be a problem..thats what iiiiiiii think

[hansschmucker]

Originally Posted by Kolgax

I doubt it's worth the headache. It certainly could be done...all the capabilities are there, but from what I hear programming for the PS2/PSP is kinda a PITA. I can see why they do Wii and XBOX (yes I mean 360) versions, but far less have PSP.

They'd then have to worry about publishing them to UMDs and such, whereas XBOX and Wii they can be just downloaded. And even if you did download it to PSP, (which would mean using a 1gb memory stick at least) how would you keep it from being pirated?

So...don't hold your breath I think. I happen to have one and I love it btw...before any of you accuse me of fanboyism. I definitely wouldn't mind a portable telltale game.

This was posted in the "how would you do a port" thread, but I think it rather belongs here.

Downloaded games are very well accepted among PSP owners and the newest PSP actually doesn't even include an UMD drive anymore.

To answer the piracy question: On consoles with unmodified ROM, there is a very strict copy protection in place. Basically you can only have one user on each console (and you can't change the user easily) and every game can only be download/installed/run on consoles with the same user. While that still means you could share one user with another person, you can't share with different people.