PlayStation Classic mini plug-&-play console announced

dschult3 - I also thought about the licensing deal being the biggest problem, but then it's strange that, by the games they chose, it's obvious they had Konami, Capcom and Square-Enix already on board - Tomb Raider, Einhänder and most RPGs I mentioned are Square properties, Castlevania and Silent Hill are Konami and Capcom had the Resident Evil sequels and Mega Man games (imagine if they included MM Legends). While some of them may be stuck in an ego war of some sort (maybe MM Legends?), I figure it would be easier negotiating more games from these publishers than going after others, like whoever owns Battle Arena Toshinden (Takara?).

Ubisoft was also on board, considering Rayman, Destruction Derby and Rainbow Six. Here is the thing: Ubisoft owns Driver, which is a much better example of an earlier open-world game than the first GTA, being in 3d and everything - it would make more sense to just license it than licensing Rainbow Six, Destruction Derby and going after Rockstar to get GTA. And Driver is an abandoned series, so I imagine it would be less expensive to license it than GTA and Rainbow Six.

And then, looking at their car games, there's the obvious absence of Gran Turismo. Isn't it a Sony property? I don't know why they would put Destruction Derby instead of going with GT (hell, it would make more sense even than Namco's Ridge Racer).

I mean, there are certainly some licensing shenanigans in play, but Nintendo did it twice with no problems - you look at the SNES selection and it's spot on, including even a Castlevania and a Mega Man game (which shows that Konami and Capcom are open to negotiate these series). It's just that there are so many games more suited to it than stuff like Cool Boarders 2 that I think licensing deals don't fully justify their final choices.

I'll give them props, though, for including Jumping Flash and Syphon Filter. Jumping Flash is known as a hidden gem of the PS1 and Syphon Filter was a big deal at the time. Wild Arms is another good one, if obscure (and it's a Sony property, so that's certainly why they went with it).