75 reasons to buy PlayStation Portable

A vast list of rumoured and largely unknown PlayStation Portable titles is the latest scrap of tantalising information to find its way out of Sony's Japanese PlayStation Meeting 2004 this week, following revelations about PSP multiplayer and PS3 on Monday and Tuesday.

The list, which consists of some 75 titles, includes only a couple of previously confirmed games, the most notable of which is Burnout from UK-based Criterion, and a confirmation of several rumoured titles (like Transformers from Atari's Melbourne House, which was first mooted in a Eurogamer interview earlier this year). Aside from those games, it's almost exclusively new product.

Even better, while many of the new titles are Japanese oddities we have no frame of reference for (Ninja Bunny Warriors, anyone?), there are some truly exciting prospects nobody had any idea about either, including a Harvest Moon title, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, and even Konami's Winning Eleven 8 - the latest in the long-running football series, and the game that will form the basis of much of the recently unveiled Pro Evolution Soccer 4.

Europe is strongly represented too, with the likes of This Is Football 2005 and Formula One '04 coming straight out of Sony's UK development studios, and entries for Eutechn (Big Mutha Truckers 2) and Argonaut (Zero Hour) amongst others.

Add to the line-up the likes of Metal Gear Acid, Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure, Ape Escape, Gran Turismo, Everybody's Golf and Death Jr., all of which appeared or were trailed at E3 this year, and the PSP is suddenly awash with promising franchise titles. And that's before we consider any platform-specific IP that Sony or other developers might plan to launch.

It's worth pointing out that, as with many of the PlayStation Meeting revelations, there isn't much context at this point (despite making many of its biggest announcements in years at the Tokyo conference, Sony neglected to translate any of it into English for the Western press), so it's impossible to speculate how many will be launch titles, how many will appear in the first year, or anything like that.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting glimpse of the future of the PSP, and following Nintendo's rundown of many tens of untold DS titles at E3, Sony finally has a product line-up in the public domain that's more than fit to compare.

For more on this week's PlayStation Meeting announcements, see here for PlayStation 3 and here for news on PSP translation software and wireless multiplayer.

The full list, courtesy of The Magic Box:

• Action Girlz Racing (Data Design)
• Activision Anthology (Activision)
• AI Series: Mahjong (Marvelous)
• AI Series: Igo (Marvelous)
• AI Series: Shougo (Marvelous)
• Autobahn Crossroads (Resolution)
• Axel Impact International (SCEK / Axis)
• Azaya: Jungle Bowl Champions (Jungle Peak)
• Battle Blades (Data Design)
• BBG (Seed9)
• Big Choppers (Eutechn)
• Big Mutha Truckers 2 (Eutechn)
• Board Game Gallery (Phoenix Games)
• Burnout (Criterion)
• Bust-A-Move (Taito)
• Card Shark 3 (Phoenix Games)
• Car Jacker (Eutechn)
• Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Buena Vista)
• Cloud of Verruca (Success)
• Clusterball 2 (Resolution)
• Crazy Racing Kart Rider (Nexon)
• Dance Mat Challenge (Data Design)
• Derby (SCEI)
• Doraslot (Dorat)
• Fighting Spirits (SCEA)
• Formula One 04 (SCEE/Evolution)
• Free Runing (Eidos)
• Generation of Chaos (Idea Factory)
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (SCEI)
• Habitrail Hamster Ball (Data Design)
• Harvest Moon (Natsume)
• Infected (Planet Moon)
• Intelligent License (Now Production)
• Joe (HumanSoft)
• Junior Sports Basketball (Data Design)
• Junior Sports Hockey (Data Design)
• Koron (CyberFront)
• Legend of River King (Marvelous)
• Mahjong Kakutou (Konami)
• Mahjong Taikai (Koei)
• Mercury (tba/Ignition)
• Metal Shell (Tantalus)
• Myth Makers Karting (Data Design)
• Need for Speed Underground (Electronic Arts)
• Ninja Bunny Warriors (Data Design)
• Offroad Xtreme (Data Design)
• Pilot ni Narou (Marvelous)
• Popolocrois Monogatari (SCEI)
• Professional Wrestling (Yukes)
• Project S (Sega)
• Rig Racing (Data Design)
• Romance of Three Kingdoms (Koei)
• RS Revolution (Spike)
• Shingata (Sunrise)
• Shin Mojibittan (Namco)
• Shin Tenmakai (Idea Factory)
• Sparrow Merit (Success)
• Sprint Madness (Resolution)
• Sticky Balls (Warthog)
• Super Star Studio (Coong)
• Talkman (SCEI)
• Technic Cute (Arika)
• Tengai Makyou (Hudson/Red)
• TGM-K (Arika)
• Tokyo Xtreme Racing (Genki)
• Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (Activision/Neversoft)
• Transformers (Atrai/Melbourne House)
• Twisted Metal: World Tour (SCEA/Incog)
• Vegas Casino 2 (Phoenix Games)
• Volcanus Online (Zepetto)
• World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 (Konami)
• World Tour Soccer 2005 (aka This Is Football 2005 - SCEE/Studio Soho)
• WRC (SCEE/Evolution)
• Zero Hour (Argonaut)
• Zooo (Success)