JBoc924It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard anything on Resident Evil Potable, since last year’s e3 to be exact. Capcom seems to have been playing things close to the chest with the devlopment of this game. It all makes one wonder: Has it been cancelled? If not, then the question still pertains: What type of gameplay will be present in the game? Ol’School or New School? But the main question has to be: Where in the blue hell is Resident Evil Portable?
Many fans were quite excited at the prospect of Capcom bringing a PSP exclusive Resident Evil to the shelves. But what fans definitely weren’t expecting was to be kept in the dark for so long with all things related to this game. The only piece of information–other than the formal announcement at e3 09–was that it would utilize the features seen in the PSP Go to a great capacity. This made people eager to see and hoping for a portable iteration into the franchise’s Outbreak series. What a perfect way to reboot that line right? But sadly , issues with the intended platform could in fact be the reason why we haven’t heard anything else on this project.
The PSP Go was released to much controversy. This was due largely in part to Sony’s decision to ommit UMD’s–a big fat middle finger to those collectors–which greatly limited the platform’s library at launch. Where if one opted to purchase a PSP 3000, they would have all of the released PSP titles to date available to choose from. While it wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as the Go, it was obviously more convenient when taking into account game availability, which is always an important factor in a system’s launch. So those tech savy (including me) PSP Go adopters were made to wait for their favorite titles to make the cut, if it hadn’t already at launch : which were mostly first party titles. We had to endure week after week of Playstation store updates until finally our beloved title showed up on the store front (Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles!). And when taking the hefty price tag into consideration, one could just churn out 50 extra dollars and get themselves a PS3 slim.
It’s not difficult to see how the PSP Go turned out to be a flop, but Sony made a huge risk to see if the consumer was ready for a digital distribution based system, obviously they weren’t and thus leading to an unfortunate failure. But hey they still got the PSP 3000 to rest on, and the platform has seen and will continue to see a healthy dose of much needed titles into their library: the likes of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, and the just announced God of War Ghost of Sparta. Is Resident Evil Portable still in that list? Or–with recent rumors of a PSP2 unveiling at E3– could Resident Evil Portable be a launch title for that platform?
So yeah, to sum it all up in a few words: Blame the PSP Go. But don’t take that as a harsh statement, because I’m sure that at this years E3 the game will be shown alive and kicking and probably even for the next generation handheld Sony is rumored to be in the midst of announcing. And what better title to showcase a new system’s capabilites than Resident Evil.
And come on we all know how many different versions Resident Evil games go through, getting REdone again and again until finally we get the end product: just look at Resident Evil 4. Speaking of Resident Evil 4, let’s all hold hands and pray together that PSP 2 isn’t touch screen based…or else we’ll all be facing the inevitable port:
