PSP Rollout and Launch

The PSP Rollout and Launch

A little over a year ago, Jamiras and gde worked on updates to RALibretro that enabled hardware rendering. The most known perk to this was that N64 would run in RALib instead of N64 development being exclusive to the standalone. I’m not going to pretend to know the more techy aspects of it and anything else I say about that would end up being corrected by Jamiras anyway. However, one “hidden” perk to that update was that the PPSSPP core actually ran in RALib and memory was exposed.

This is shortly after I found out I was my own worst enemy here because I proceeded to not shut up about it… and still haven’t.

As exciting as that was, there was a laundry list of issues that needed to be worked out before it was viable for achievement development and players. I have no background in programming, so I was also at the mercy of waiting on updates. All I could do was test, test, and test some more.

Then back in May, I started DMing devs to gauge interest in PSP sets. I wanted to see how much “claim overlap” there would be and figured it would be better to get those resolved ASAP. StingX2 volunteered to help contact devs so I could focus on organizing the data and continue testing games. Sometime in August, Jamiras had the hashing for PSP worked out. That’s when we started contacting devs again to lock-in their claims and to plan a rollout schedule. The overall plan was to try and make PSP support feel like an actual console launch instead of an “Oh, by the way…” news update. Remember the Sega Saturn launch?

We continued to hype it up and revealed more details each week. StingX2 helped coordinate and manage the rollout until the final week, in which I had to fly solo. That’s another matter entirely and still pending resolution. Point is, I am making sure StingX2 gets credit where credit is due.

Anyway, the most work put into the rollout was done by our achievement developers, which we locked in a dark room and didn’t let them out for an entire month. All in all, I think it was a success and the launch went better than we could have anticipated. At the time of writing this, I’m also making a survey for devs to see how they felt about it. So, thanks again to all who contributed.

Launch day for PSP consisted of 38 sets being promoted to core. 36 base sets, a bonus set, and a subset. The previous record was held by PS1, which had 23 sets at launch and 35 by the end of the first month. You guys crushed it. :heart:

Game Developer(s) Genre
20Q 20Q SporyTike Trivia
Corpse Party Corpse Party lordpsycho Adventure
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Snow Action-RPG
Crystal Defenders Crystal Defenders Snow Tower Defense
Dynasty Warriors Dynasty Warriors Bearfax62 Hack and Slash
Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce SporyTike Hack and Slash
Echochrome Echochrome Tybis Puzzle
Evangelion New Theatrical Edition: 3nd Impact Evangelion New Theatrical Edition: 3nd Impact KingS1zzle Rhythm-Action
Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection Snow and Ryudo RPG
Gitaroo-Man Lives! Gitaroo-Man Lives! KingS1zzle Rhythm-Action
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA lordpsycho Rhythm
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd lordpsycho Rhythm
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Extend Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Extend lordpsycho Rhythm
Impossible Game, The Impossible Game, The SporyTike Platformer
Initial D: Street Stage Initial D: Street Stage Lewis50248 Racing
K-ON! Ho-kago Live!! K-ON! Ho-kago Live!! KingS1zzle Rhythm-Action
Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky FC Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky FC televandalist RPG
Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky FC [Subset - NG Nightmare] Legend of Heroes, The: Trails in the Sky FC [Subset - NG Nightmare] televandalist RPG
LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures pinguupinguu Action-Adventure
LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival SporyTike Platformer
Me & My Katamari Me & My Katamari blendedsea Puzzle-Action
Medal of Honor: Heroes Medal of Honor: Heroes SlashTangent Action-FPS
Mega Man Powered Up Mega Man Powered Up ikk5 and GalacticSpear Action-Platformer
Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X GalacticSpear and AlexGatao Action-Platformer
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops wilhitewarrior Action-Stealth
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition BigWeedSmokerMan Racing
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Monster Hunter Freedom Unite SlashTangent Action-RPG
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite [Bonus] Monster Hunter Freedom Unite [Bonus] SlashTangent Action-RPG
Pangya Fantasy Golf Pangya Fantasy Golf voiceofautumn Sports
Peggle Peggle TeddyWestside Puzzle-Action
Persona 3 Portable Persona 3 Portable Altomar RPG
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords TeddyWestside Puzzle-RPG
Route 66 Route 66 SporyTike Hidden Object
Shinseiki Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel 2nd Portable Shinseiki Evangelion: Girlfriend of Steel 2nd Portable guindev Visual Novel
Tekken: Dark Resurrection Tekken: Dark Resurrection Snow 3D Fighting
Tenchu: Shadow Assassins Tenchu: Shadow Assassins blendedsea Action-Stealth
Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins Zpeligo Action-Platformer
Wild Arms XF Wild Arms XF BurnoKiko Strategy-RPG

Hopefully one of these days, I’ll be able to play some of them. In the meantime, have fun!