Monster Hunter Tri Could be PSP Bound

Hold on to your hats, fanboys and girls. The hotly anticipated Monster Hunter 3, also known as Tri, may not be an exclusive Wii game after all. Capcom originally surprised many long-time fans of the series when it announced that the upcoming Monster Hunter installment would move to the family-friendly Wii console. First of all, previous releases have all been tied to Sony hardware, making this move feel a little bit like treachery. Secondly, fans worried that the casual nature of the Wii audience would cause Capcom to dumb down its notoriously difficult game.

Make no mistake about it, however. Monster hunter Tri is a pure-bred Monster Hunter game, with monumental dragons, vast expanses of nature, and interminable inventory screens. The only thing fundamentally different about the game is that it includes underwater environments, and it is partially controlled using motion input. The analog stick on the nunchuck guides the player avatar, while the Wiimote is used to swing whatever weapon the player is holding. Based on early hands-on impressions, all of this works surprisingly well on the Wii. It is hard for us to be more excited for a game than we are for Monster Hunter Tri.

The good news is that rumors are circulating that Capcom may break its earlier pact of Wii exclusivity and bring the game to a Sony console. Which one, you might ask? Well, the PSP is the obvious choice, considering that it has already hosted three successful installments of the game, and has an absolutely massive following in Japan. The PSP is also closest to the Wii in terms of raw performance. While we would love to see a PS3 version of the game, we will definitely settle for a handheld port.

What is the evidence for this claim? Well, it remains pretty thin. Earlier this week, a Capcom representative told game journalists that “The decision of Monster Hunter 3’s Wii-exclusivity is not yet final.” Later, Capcom updated the official website, officially denying the rumor. However, the language they used suggests that a future port of the game might still be on the table.

This is how monster hunter tri looks like on Wii