LittleBigPlanet, Rock Band Coming to PSP

Sony announced a doozy of a line up for the PSP in 2009 today, with LittleBigPlanet, Motorstorm, Rock Band and Assassin's Creed all coming to the handheld by year's end.

"With a rapidly growing install base, the PSP platform is riding a wave of momentum that will be paired with a new hardware offering and its best software line up to date, demonstrating significant support from SCEA's publishing partners," Sony said in an announcement from its Destination PlayStation event today.

They're actually not just blowing hot air, either. Hannah Montana and Petz games aside, the line up for the PSP in 2009 is full of some serious top-tier franchises.

As has been heavily hinted at before, there's LittleBigPlanet, which Sony claims will offer "new SackBoy adventures with the same play, create, share experience for gamers on-the-go, in addition to brand new levels and environments specifically created for the platform." The game will be developed "in conjunction with Media Molecule," which makes it sound like another studio will be handling the title with Media Molecule watching on.

Also on the first-party front is a new Motorstorm title called Arctic Edge that'll be set in Alaska and is due for a PS2 release as well.

As for third-party games, we'll be seeing an "exclusive installment" of Assassin's Creed that'll be released with a new PSP bundle, Dissidia Final Fantasy from Square-Enix, and Madden 2010 (naturally). More interesting from EA is Rock Band Unplugged, which will be the franchise's portable debut and will use the PSP's Wi-Fi to run an in-game store for downloadable content. Unplugged will "launch exclusively" on PSP, suggesting that we might see it on the DS in due time.

Rock Band on the go? It could work on the DS maybe, Guitar Hero: On Tour almost did. But the PSP? I'm not too sure about that. Unless it comes packaged with mini-drums that plug into the PSP's USB port, I can't really see it working. Either way, sounds like PSP owners should have a lot to look forward to this year. Man, I knew I shouldn't have traded mine for a burrito.