Sony Computer Entertainment America on Wednesday said its customers have downloaded over 1 million bite-sized PlayStation Minis games worldwide in the nine months since their debut, with Age of Zombies leading the way.
PlayStation Network senior director Susan Panico noted the milestone in a post on the official U.S. PlayStation blog.
The news comes just a few months after SCEA's SVP of publisher relations Rob Dyer expressed concerns over the viability of the program, including the fact that many Minis are "recalibrated iPhone games."
Sony debuted the PSP Minis program in August 2009, and launched the first titles in October. Minis are smaller-sized, inexpensive downloadable games that originally came only to the PSP. Many speculated that the move was in response to the popularity of App Store titles for the iPhone, although Sony never directly called it such.
In December 2009, Sony said that it would upgrade PlayStation 3 firmware to allow PSP Minis titles to be played on the home console. Panico said that over 50 developers are making PSP Minis games.
Panico also revealed the top 10 most-downloaded Minis titles, led by Halfbrick's Age of Zombies (SCEA did not reveal unit sales numbers for the titles):
It was mostly a SCEE initiative, I think partly because Europe has a history of being friendlier to smaller developers (a legacy of the Amiga, if you will), and partly because there basically is no other Western support for the PSP anymore in terms of software.
Pretty much all the major Western companies have stopped making software for it. All it's got left are a few sports title rehashes.
Pretty much all the major Western companies have stopped making software for it. All it's got left are a few sports title rehashes.