GDC: Sony shows off PSP software for the first time

The world's first public showing of software for the PSP has taken place at the Game Developers Conference, with an exclusive title from Backbone Entertainment being demonstrated during a presentation by Sony's Andrew House.

Called Death, Jr., the game is an action platformer cartoony, cel-shaded visuals and gameplay style reminiscent of Capcom's PS2 title Maximo, and the video of the game in action - which was demonstrated by Chris Charla, producer for Digital Eclipse - demonstrated a level of graphical prowess previously unheard of in a handheld console.

"Polygon for polygon, PSP has more power than PS2," enthused Charla, confirming our expectations based on Sony's released specs for the device. "A huge number of effects that are given to you in software on PS2 are available in hardware on PSP."

Charla also commented on the ease of development for the handheld system, a common sentiment among those working on the platform, stating that Backbone's first PSP game was up and running in two man-weeks, with a PS2 project ported to the platform within a month.

Much of the rest of Andrew House's keynote was also devoted to PSP, with the SCEA vice president telling the audience that 81 developers are now working on the device, with the largest number of the (34 in total) in Europe followed by 24 in Japan and 23 in North America.

He also confirmed that the device will sport 802.11b wireless LAN capabilities (contrary to recent unsubstantiated rumours that this had been dropped from the spec) and claimed that the system will be able to connect not only with the PlayStation 3, but also with home PCs, presumably in order to transfer digital media such as movies and music onto the handheld device.

News website 1up has a camcorder video of the Death Jr. presentation linked from [this article] for your delectation.