As Konami tells it, the PSP's hardware sales were in a downward spiral. Then they released Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, the game sold well, and the PSP's sales abruptly spiked. It's hard not to draw a line between those facts and the decision, which is already proving somewhat controversial, to release The Dracula X Chronicles on PSP.
This compilation disc represents something that American and European gamers have been asking about for more than a decade now: a translation of the Dracula X: Chi no Rondo, or more simply, Rondo of Blood.
Rondo made its debut on the PC Engine in 1993. While NEC's system was a growingconcern in Japan right up until 1999 or so, it was roundly defeated in North America and Europe by the Sega Genesis. That, combined with unspecified "technical issues," as mentioned by Koji Igarashi at Konami Gamers' Day 2007, prevented Rondo from being ported to another system or translated. (The SNES version of Dracula X, while not wildly dissimilar to the PC Engine version, is in the end a much different game.)
