Sony starts its own "back catalogue" service

Written by Brett Thomas

December 6, 2006 | 14:13

Tags: #ps3 #psp

Companies: #sony

"If it was good enough to make once, it's good enough to make money off of again." That motto must be ringing through the halls in Japan - and now that Nintendo's VirtualConsole is taking off, Sony wants a cut of the action as well. In fact, the company just developed a whole new use for its brand new PlayStation Network - you can buy PSOne titles to download for your PSP.

"Hip-hip hooray," I hear you scream. After all, the PSP is basically a well-shrunk PSOne anyway, but Sony has been a bit hesitant to release some of the bigger-hitting titles. But now, more than ten years after creation, some of the big greats are coming to the small screen.

The first round of games for the US store includes: Cool Boarders, Crash Bandicoot, Hot Shots Golf 2, Syphon Filter and Tekken 2. The Japanese, of course, get a different allotment: Tekken 2, Hot Shots Golf 2, Resident Evil Director’s Cut, Jumping Flash, Arc the Lad and Mister Driller. Sony promises that more titles will be added, possibly with a monthly frequency.

Did you notice that there's no European info on it yet? That's because the PlayStation Network is only available via the PS3...how's that for cross-marketing? The titles will cost $5.99 USD each and can be downloaded to your MemoryStick, which will then play in the PSP with its latest firmware update.

Peter Dille, Senior VP of Product Marketing at SCEA had this to say:
"Downloadable PlayStation emulated games on the PSP is just the beginning, but it underscores our vision for leveraging the wide breadth of content that's available from the PlayStation brand, and delivers value to gamers well beyond the initial purchase of their PS3 and PSP. We built every system with a hard disk drive and offer every customer free access to the PlayStation Store so they can experience the full extent of the PlayStation library. We'll offer additional PlayStation games to the PlayStation Store on a regular basis."

So, there you have it - spend $600 on a console so that you can spend $6 on ten-year-old games to play on something else that cost you $150. As long as you live in the US or Japan, that is. Milk, milk, milk the cash cow! All jest and cynicism aside, though, if you do intend to own both a PS3 and a PSP anyway, this is a pretty sweet deal - hopefully, the titles will expand to include other true favourites of the PSOne.

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