Hey all! I’m P.J. Snavely, senior producer for SCEA here in sunny San Diego. For everybody that read my last post on High Velocity Bowling and left comments, thank you very much. I’m looking forward to the release of that title in the next few weeks. I also share time on another project that’s been my baby since its inception and that’s NBA ’08 on PSP.
NBA ’08 for the PSP is our fourth iteration of basketball on the handheld platform. Over the past three versions, we’ve always tried to be on the leading edge of combining simulation NBA basketball with some new and innovative ideas in the genre – things that would be fun and different to play. Personally, I find it very frustrating when developers bring an identical version of a sports game to the PSP, so we’ve gone out of our way to ensure that NBA ’08 is significantly different than its PS2/PS3 brethren.
Along those lines, we came up with a concept for a “Basketball meets Risk” type of game mode that we call Conquest. In Conquest, you pick an NBA team and then try to “capture” other NBA cities by playing them head-to-head. If you win, you take over that city and all of its players. Should you lose, the defending city has the option to steal one of your players. We’ve also thrown in little gameplay twists, like if you occupy all five teams within a division, you can unlock a historic player who will come out of retirement and play for you. It’s a great combination of planning and “strategery” and (imho) a better gameplay experience than a typical Franchise mode.
Hope you enjoy the game – it hits shelves Tuesday, October 2nd!
GASP PSP RELATED COMMENT GASP
Looks pretty cool, unfortunately gotta pick up a new PSP charger to play it.
I like the way you guys are spending time with each indvidual platform and not having to push out rushed NBA games exactly one year later.
Also, it’s basketball related strategy….pretty funny.
Cool. It seems like NBA street homecout mixed with NBA 07. Ill definitely be getting this Oct.2.
Hmm I wouldn’t mind but can it connect to PS3 to continue on the career?
Andrewsqual – No connectivity to PS3 this year, we just ran out of time in the development cycle. Its definitely something we’ll be exploring in the next dev cycle, though.
Nice work, boys. May pick this one up =)
i dont play sports games.
I personally don’t play sports games (sports is a better alternative imho). But i do have a few friends that do, so i think i might refer this to them, sounds interesting.
I loved Conquest Mode last year. But I wont be buying any PSP games untill the Black PSP 2000 hits retailers.
Hey P.J. do you have a date for us? I traded in my old PSP last week while waiting for the new one.
And High Velocity Bowling in the next few weeks? Hells Yeah! I will be playing the hell out of this on the weekends. Date? Price point?
I tried to get into the game last year on both PS3 and the PSP. The problem with it for me is that it feels slightly “arcady”. I’ve played the PS3 demo and it’s a bit better so I’m curious to see how the PSP version will turn out.
Ah PSP .. im sorry I dumped you for that more petite japanese chick .. but she got way to clingy and immature. I was wrong to leave you and was hoping you or your little sister would go out with me again ;).
No seriously though .. im in love with my PSP 2000, gave me a chance to play Daxter and now while I wait for God Of War a good Basketball game is a must have.
What’s different between nba 07 and nba 08 on the conquest mode?
It looks and sounds exactly the same to me or did I miss something?
[…] gnuthomson@users.sourceforge.net (Tomasz Mrugalski) wrote an interesting post today!.Here’s a quick excerptconquest map2. Hey all! I’m PJ Snavely, senior producer for SCEA here in sunny San Diego. For everybody that read my last post on High Velocity Bowling and left comments, thank you very much. I’m looking forward to the release of that … […]
Basicly the same the as NBA 07 psp, with slightly better graphics..
THATS A GOOD THING!!!
NBA 07 ps3 sucked…
NBA 07 psp was awsome!
Looks cool! I tried the NBA ’08 demo on PS3 and it’s pretty good. Is there gonna be a demo of this released on PSP?
Well if you guys are going to have a psp games we need something like God of War and/or platform sorry i have psp games and i dont have 1 that is sport, thats just because those dont play good on the psp or maybe you guys can make them work better so far my favorite is Final Fantasy 1 just because the game play almost perfect on the psp
40cal – Sorry, I can’t confirm hardware dates. =) As for HVB, we’re targeting a date about a month from now with a projected price point of $9.99.
GamerMan76 – Its the same basic concept as last year, but a lot of people missed out on last year’s version. We’ve added some more strategy this year, with player and arena-specific upgrades. It adds another good dimension to the game, I think.
Clinton514 – I think you’ll see that we slowed the game down overall and given it a much more simulation feel. Its still easy to pick up and play, but definitely not as “arcadey” as it has been in the past.
Wolverine81 – We do have a demo coming out in the very near future. It’ll be digitally available on playstation.com.
Thanks all for the comments & questions!
:D I’ll most def. give it a play P.J. Thanks for the response!
ps. They need to up your blog status like the other authors so that your posts are highlighted with a red cell. That way everyone can find your replies easier. :lol:
Seriously…I’m such a second class citizen around here. ;)
@PSnavely
Thanks for the answer! I’ll be looking forward to trying out the demo. They do need to highlight your posts in red. Everybody else gets it, why shouldn’t you? :)
nba08 is much better than nba live.
@ P.J.
Thanks bro. HVB for $9.99? Oh yeah, first day that hits PSN I’m on it. I know thats a “projected” price point though.
Damn I want that new sexy black PSP so bad with all the good games coming out and my UMD movie collection (31) I need that bad boy. Congrats on moving a quater mill PSP 2000s in 4 days in Japan.
post 22 i identify…today i purchased six umd movies. i noticed since i got my psp i can handle gridlock better. psp has lessened stress. of course i am talking about being on the subway and rapid transit which at times can be rather slow.living in the big city and having a psp is perfecto. gracia sony
Pretty cool.
Hay P.J. got red posts :) Congrats
@orbio234
Yes the PSP make life much better. If I had know that the Black 2000 was going to take this long I would have not traded in the older model so soon.
I would just pick up the silver one but I have everything it comes with. Well I dont have a 1gig stick because I have a 4 gig stick with tons of media on it. And I like the black one it goes great with my car, truck, and PS3. :) I guess the color poll we took was to see how many people would have to wait. :(
Please Sony give us the Black PSP 2000! Next week would be great for me. :)
I don’t care, release the PSP camera in the US sometime this year, PLEASE.
Yep, PSP camera and GPS in the states would be great.
One last thing P.J. is NBA 08 for PSP going to have weekly NBA updates like the PS3 version? Or can we get them with Remote Play?
PJ: +1 for Bushism
Game looks decent enough. I don’t have much faith in basketball games nowadays, the only one I’d buy is Street, and I hate that it is like that. At least you’re trying, though. :P
PS – C’mon Bowling $6.99! I only have $8.50 in my wallet =o I know that’s impossible, but I can dream.
Woot, I’m red! Thanks, mods! (and clinton514wolverine81!)
*40cal*
The only weekly updates we have planned are for rosters. We are doing monthly updates for new pinball boards, though. We’re trying to get a feel for what consumers want and will use before I make my product plan for next year’s online.
*RainerLagStyle*
I’m totally in agreement with you on basketball games in general these days. That’s why I’ve taken PSP down the path that I have. I really do think the guys working here on the PS2/PS3 versions have done a very nice job this year. For us on PSP, I think the 5v5 simulation can stand on its own, but if you’re interested in other things, there’s tons of other things. Really – where else can you play Arkanoid inside of a basketball game? And I don’t think Bowling for $6.99 is going to happen…it might have with the original feature set we planned, but I think this game is already shelf-worthy and a steal at $9.99. :)
I picked me up a psp slim just to play Castlevania and the new silent hill. I was going to get NBA for ps3, but after reading the reviews… think I’m gonna pass. Sony needs to make better in house games. All there is to it. They all feel “what’s the word… ??? Generic!” The Getaway, Mark of Kri, Nba, Mlb… I can go on. they all feel lesser than the other games in the genre’s those games represent. I’d like to get this for PSP, but only if it’s good… I can’t stand too many sports games cause they’re all rehashes… I could just as easily buy last years version.
@ PJ: Yeah I know, it looks great, I just don’t want to add money because I have one of those lame debit cards that charges you for every use, and for putting money on
Glad someone developing basketball games actually notices how stale they’re becoming, hopefully you’ll help to liven things up a bit :) And I will still probably buy Bowling, I’ll just have to go add like $50 to my wallet at once so I don’t have to keep getting charged, heh. Anyway, here’s hoping you’ll figure a way to make basketball games fun again :)
hmmm… hadn’t ever heard of the conquest mode, sounds like it makes things more interesting,
thanks for the feedback!
do you think they will ever release a PSP with dual analog nubs?
@40Cal; i’m from Europe and got the Slim (black) on sept. 1.. and the camera in June.. GPS arives Q1 2008… thanks for making my day, normaly it’s Europe that gets stuff late.
Looks pretty sweet. I don’t usually care about sports games but I think I will have to give this one a try when I get my new PSP.
good job on the psp selling more then any other console… hope yall can do the same with the ps3…..all u need is games that are only on ps3.. right now only 3…i think.
@PJ Snavely
hey.. incredibly off topic but do u kno any Snavely’s based out of Upstate New York/Pensylvania? I just noticed your last name… same as mine.
this game looks pretty sweet, i still havent gotten a psp.. waiting for some cool functionality between it and the ps3
@terminatorvsmtrx
I just wanted to make sure that you know about Remote Play. :)
yea ive tried it.. just wasnt impressed enough to go out and buy one.. my friends psp kept getting disconected and the only way to fix it was to go all the way back to my house and hit remote play on my ps3 again
although now that i think about it.. i could have been doing it entirely wrong…. xmas ill get a psp
Reading the title in my RSS aggregator, I thought it was going to be about the PSP-2000 launch in Japan.
Ok so I wasn’t losing my mind cause I have NB ’07 and all the features sounded the same.
Unfortuneately I will just pass this year on NBA 08 for psp but it will be the first year I pick up the inhouse version of NBA with NBA 08 on PS3… it’s simplistic and honestly I have the ohter version and want a good diversification… I like simplistic at times and NBA live really sucks since 99 .. NBA 2k versions aren’t as good either so new year new publisher and sony is the benficier of that.
Of course i still have NBA 07 for my PSP..
One thing I would really like to see is some connectivity between the NBA 09 versions so that I can play the season remotely through my PSP.. play it on my PS3 or have the data on my PSP and play the nba 09 psp version.. I would really dig that and I’m sure some others would too.
“One thing I would really like to see is some connectivity between the NBA 09 versions so that I can play the season remotely through my PSP.. play it on my PS3 or have the data on my PSP and play the nba 09 psp version.. I would really dig that and I’m sure some others would too.” – GamerMan76
Yes I also would love to see this happen. And I also will be picking up NBA 08 this year, Live may have more detailed player models but the game play sucks. And I cant wait for the weekly NBA updates with the PSN. :)
Congrats on the Japan sales of the PSP. Hope the momentum keeps going, and the games keep rolling.
High Velocity Bowling WHOOT!
Conquest Mode is an awesome addition to this PSP game – I played it a bunch last season. Most of the b-ball games now just follow the same formula year after year. Keep up the good work.
Glad to see something different being offered in a sports game, hopefully it turns out great.
IDK who to ask but @SONY
IDK if i should get rockband (ps3) or get the psp jack bundle. Id like to know if Sony is planning to release more colors b4 the holiday season.
[…] Snavely’s recent PlayStation blog post echoes the sentiments of many PSP owners. “Personally, I find it very frustrating when […]
cool
psp cool