PSP suitable for MMO

By Robert Purchese Published 4 June, 2007

D&D Tactics boss speaks up.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics producer Lawrence Liberty believes the PSP could handle an MMO.

He was speaking to Eurogamer in an exclusive interview about his upcoming role-playing game, and said the only thing holding the platform back from going online was a potential lack of audience. So, er.

"There could be an MMO made for the PSP," Liberty told Eurogamer. "Even if it relied on a sizeable Memory Stick, the machine has the basic components to field an MMO. It could certainly handle something like EverQuest Online Adventures [PS2 MMO].

"This begs the question, would there be a market for a PSP MMO?"

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics is an RPG with its roots firmly in traditional turn-based soil. Liberty reckons this is the best way to recreate the famous D&D gameplay, and that the lack of similar games on the platform will spell success.

He also remains optimistic that there's plenty of space in the genre-playground for RPG and MMO to co-exist; the rise of one won't stamp on the other's sand-castle, so to speak.

"I think there is room enough for both genres to thrive. The continued success of Final Fantasy is testament to that. The gaming market continues to expand, so I don't view the RPG market as fixed," he continued.

Look out for our full interview with Lawrence Liberty later in the week.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics is due out on PSP in September.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dirigiblebill #1 5 years ago

    As with any handheld game, a MMO for the psp would have to be playable in fits and starts. I don't wanna spend five hours farming for ore when I could be playing Crush, for feck's sake. Not sure the battery life would hold up, either.

    These criticisms aside, ZOMG teh psp MMO is teh schnizzl3!1

  • Venkman90 #2 5 years ago

    D&D Tactics is the one game I think will make me regret selling my PSP

    Convert it to DS please, you will make bundles :b

  • dirigiblebill #3 5 years ago

    Not sure the DS could crunch the numbers or handle the save file :(

  • Hughes. #4 5 years ago

    TDU works fine as an always on MMO, the only flaw being you get logged out if you go into sleep mode and have to quit the game to log back in. Whether an MMO RPG would work as well depends on the pacing of the game, and whether handheld gamers would be expected to pay a monthly subscription that usually goes with them.

    I wouldn't.

  • Quine #5 5 years ago

    I'm oddly excited about D&D Tactics- not sure it would work on the DS, but there's some loose talk of a Disgaea port in the works for it.

    The PSP could make a good stripped-down client for a full-on subscription MMO- do some crafting while on the bus, grind a few mobs while the autopatcher finishes on the main machine...

  • Nobuo #6 5 years ago

    Why would you design a non-portable game for the PSP?

  • bushwod #7 5 years ago

    Right, so I wouldn't be able to play this on the train or tube or bus or park (unless your very lucky)...

    So...

    ...pointless then.

  • manic_mouse #8 5 years ago

    "Why would you design a non-portable game for the PSP?"

    What is a portable game? One you can play on the go, which means ANY game on the PSP is portable. And with the sleep functionality the length of time needed to play is irrelevant.

    I, for one, am really glad the PSP hasn't been inundated with "portable games".

  • AOFanboi #9 5 years ago

    Tactical D&D 3 ed. RPG has already been done in the form of Eye of the Beholder on the GBA, though.

    PSP MMO - well, the interface would nbeed to be far less cluttered than the traditional MMOs use - maybe something like the console-oriented MMOs like FF XI or PSO/PSU.

  • Nobuo #10 5 years ago

    "What is a portable game? One you can play on the go, which means ANY game on the PSP is portable."

    Except THIS game, which would make you unable to move from a wireless hotspot, for most people meaning their own home.

    But like this guy says, it's possible. It just occurs to me that once you've taken the portable out of the PSP the usually lame argument of "it's just a PS2" becomes valid.

  • dirigiblebill #11 5 years ago

    "What is a portable game? One you can play on the go, which means ANY game on the PSP is portable."

    Except THIS game, which would make you unable to move from a wireless hotspot, for most people meaning their own home.

    They could bundle it with some sort of wi-fi hotspot deal, but that would be pretty cynical.