Tomonobu Itagaki, the genius behind the Ninja Gaiden series including the forthcoming DS version, discusses why he chose the DS over the PSP when developing the handheld Ninja Gaiden.
I am sure that you, or people like you, might wonder, “If the visual is so important, then why choose DS over the PSP?”
The reason is because the PlayStation Portable is basically designed on the philosophy of having a console that you can take with you. They are basically just toning down what we see on home consoles such as the 360 or the PS3; whereas the DS was looking at a whole new method of input. Just as I said earlier, one of the key aspects of game design is the interactivity between the user’s input and what happens on the screen, so I thought: here is a chance to do something totally original, using the strengths of this hardware. If I was going to make a game for PSP, I would be better off making a game for PS2, because they are essentially attempting to do the same thing.
The whole interview is a great read, he goes on to say that the PSP’s true competitor was actually the GameBoy Advance and that the PSP is actually competing with a handheld that has a massive fanbase. To overcome the DS, the PSP would have had to grab a significant portion of the GBA’s fans. A great read overall, but that quote summed up his feelings pretty well.
