Rebellion: PSP focus ‘just happened’

With the Develop Awards just five weeks away, the consumer press is starting to ask the nominees (full list here) about their chances, and UK studio Rebellion – nominated for best handheld studio and business development – has been talking candidly about its growing reputation as a PSP developer.

While the studio is hard at work on a number of multi-format next-gen titles for big publishers, it has an handheld softography of PSP games, including Dead to Rights: Reckoning, James Bond: From Russia with Love, Miami Vice, GUN Showdown and Free Running. It’s also currently making Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron and two other PSP titles as well that are so far unannounced.

And although the studio doesn’t want to be pigeonholed, it’s clear it knows Sony’s handheld well – it’s having to turn work down, so busy is its slate of PSP titles, claims CEO and creative director Jason Kingsely.

"It’s weird because we’re down for this Develop award for being best handheld studio, but we’re not a handheld developer. We’re a developer who’s happened to made a lot of PSP games, which is something we didn’t really plan on doing. It’s just happened," he explained to Pocket Gamer (in an interview conducted by Develop’s own Jon Jordan).

"We’ve done something like a dozen titles, and people keep coming to us with more. We’re having to turn a lot of it down," he added.