More God of War and GTA for PSP?

Talk about the PSP just keeps buzzing away, with chatter making the rounds about both new God of War and GTA games on the platform.

So: God of War. Joystiq claims a "trusted source" has told it that Ready at Dawn, the developer of God of War: Chains of Olympus, is hard at work on a new game in the GoW franchise for Sony's handheld.

That might raise an eyebrow if you were watching the news wires back in June last year. Ready at Dawn stated on its website, "With Chains of Olympus going Gold in Japan, we’re now officially done with PSP development." It also showed an image of boxed up PSP dev kits being shipped back to Sony.

According to the source, Ready at Dawn did indeed ship all its PSP dev kits back to Sony, but received new ones later in the year after the new GoW game was requested by Sony. The game might be ready for an E3 showing this year, apparently.

Predictably, Ready at Dawn president and co-founder, Didier Malenfant, gave a roundabout no comment. "You know that even if we were [making the game], I couldn't answer your question", he said.

As for Grand Theft Auto, the ever-chatty John Koller, US director of hardware marketing for the PSP, has suggested that Sony is in talks with Rockstar about more from the series on its handheld. “No one should sleep on that franchise”, Koller told MTV Multiplayer. “That’s a tremendous franchise for PlayStation in general. We’ve had two that are the top two sellers on PSP right now. So, there’s definitely continued conversations with Rockstar on all their brands. That’s nothing that’s left the PlayStation family.”

Nothing concrete there - Koller could just be talking about the follow-up to GTA IV that will inevitably appear on consoles. Koller clearly doesn't want us to discount the series on the PSP, however.

Throw in Koller's assertion to Kotaku that some major "triple-A" titles are coming in the back half of the year and set for announcement in the next few months as well as at E3 and... well, our appendages are crossed.

Koller also couldn't resist a backhander aimed at the DS-bound GTA: Chinatown Wars. “It’s an interesting launch on DS”, Koller said. "It raises some eyebrows in a lot of areas. It’ll be interesting to see how that sells.” For SPOnG's take on the game, see our latest Chinatown Wars preview.

On top of all that, a Sony Europe rep has told MCV of the PSP that, “we'll be outlining the release of additional, new and existing IPs for the platform in the coming months”. For once, it's exciting times for the PSP.

Sony has been giving the PSP a much-needed prod in the posterior of late, with MotorStorm and LittleBigPlanet games both having been recently confirmed for the platform.