One particular area PSP games have surprisingly early roots in is downloadable content.

Thanks to the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live, downloadable content has become a well worn term to gamers of today, with such extra content as Fallout 3 story expansions, maps in Halo 3, and added sack boys in LittleBigPlanet.

WipeOut Pure, one of the first PSP games launched, featured a multitude of extra downloadable tracks and racing ships long before the PSP even had a Web browser.

Killzone: Liberation went as far as to add online multiplayer and a whole 20% more story as downloadable content, and free at that. Most PSP games would work with downloadable content, so why not the ever technologically leading edge Square Enix in their first Final Fantasy brawler on PSP?

Much like Street Fighter and Soul Calibur of this generation of consoles, Dissidia: Final Fantasy features well developed online fights between players.

As proven by such mentioned console titles, the fighting genre especially is very well suited for extra downloadable content. Extra characters, new outfits, new stages, extra story, weapons, abilities, the areas in which Square Enix has to choose from to further flesh out Dissidia with downloadable content is huge.

Square Enix isn't a stranger to adding content to its games. Final Fantasy XI, although not via downloads, has long seen extensive additions to it's story, classes and more to its original release via expansion packs. 2008's The Last Remnant featured downloadable content as well on Xbox Live, yet when asking Dissidia Director Takeshi Arakawa about downloadable content for his game, he wasn't as generous:

"We have no plans at all for downloadable content."

An unfortunate choice for Square Enix to make, but adversely Dissidia does still have a few extras hidden on the disc for gamers, one of which is PP-Codes. Takeshi Arakawa told Final Fantasy Union of their plans for the feature in North America:

"As in the Japanese version, we have the PP-Catalogue system which is there to be unlocked, and also we are going to issue passwords which will enable you to unlock very strong characters, but no new characters will become available in the overseas version."

Arakawa added that the codes released in Japanese magazines won't work in North American or European versions of Dissidia as well.

While Dissidia may feature the always welcome online multiplayer and other rare features like partial game installation on the PSP's memory stick, downloadable content won't be one of them.

However, the timed unlockables Square has hidden in the game are similar enough to some DLC strategies that perhaps Dissidia's PP-Codes system is a playing-it-safe test into the realm of DLC.

We'll just have to wait and see how Square Enix deals with DLC into the future.




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