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More analysts give two cents about the state of the PSP

Posted Apr 6, 2007 at 12:04PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Interviews, News Tags: David Cole, Ed Barton, interviews, Mike Wolf, Sony

the Sony PSP - Image 1

The very enlightened folks over at Gamasutra notes that David Cole of DFC Intelligence, Ed Barton of Screen Digest, and ABI Research director">Mike Wolf of ABI research, the professional analysts, the people who get paid to talk gaming business are willing to give their two cents regarding the current state of the Sony PlayStation Portable.

David Cole notes his mixed feelings towards the PSP. While he believes that Sony's handheld has proven that there's room in the market for two portable systems, and that there is demand for a more high-end portable platform, he feels that the PSP could use a new model. Cole notes Nintendo's success with that strategy, and cites the GBA SP, and the DS Lite.

Ed Barton, on the other hand believes that the only way the PSP can be seen as anything other than a success is by comparing it with the dominant Nintendo DS. Barton cites forecasts of PSP console and software sales, and an installed base that should be 29 million by the end of 2007. Not as dominant as the DS but definitely NOT a failure. He ads: "If this is 'failing,' then failure just got a huge brand makeover."

As for Mike Wolf, he believes that the prevalent perception that the platform is a "failure" is manly due to the device struggling to live up to Sony's marketing of the product. Which according to him is what the PS3 is going through today. He notes that Sony's swagger, bravado, and "we are the one to beat" attitude is to blame for the PSP's bad reputation.

Wolf also ads that Sony's effort to use the UMD format as an avenue for movie distribution was a really bad move, especially now that the world is trying to move towards digital distribution. UMD: decent for games, bad for movies. The cherry on the PSP bad rep cake according to Wolf is the reliance on Memory Sticks, he believes that although the device would have cost more, if it had a significant amount of flash memory, then the PSP would have been much more successful.

As for generating more excitement for the PSP, suggestions included taking advantage of the PSP-PS3 connection, focusing on community, integration with the Location Free client and Home, distinct console unique games with gameplay that highlights the PSP, less PSP to PS2 ports, more "rethought" games like Ratchet & Clank, and as noted by Ed Barton (something that you folks definitely agree with) "offering users ways to create and share gaming content."

Home *hack, cough* brew.

As for their forecast for the PSP this year and the next, most of them agree that the time is ripe for a new hardware iteration (more memory and battery), some even express that a hardware upgrade is more pertinent than a price cut. They note it would be a good time for Sony to improve on wireless downloadable content for the PSP. Although they're all eager to see a second PSP, Wolf notes that "Sony's too focused on the PS3 right now to deliver a new handheld in the next 18 months."

Via Gamasutra

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I THINK SONY SHOULD MAKE A FIRMWARE WHICH HAS HOMEBREW USABLE, BUT INSTEAD OF BEING ABLE TO PUT ANY HOMEBREW, SONY SHOULD ENCRYPT THEM AND DISALLOW ISO LOADERS AND FIRMWARE EMULATORS, FOR LESS PIRACY. TO MAKE SONY WANT TO DO THIS MORE, THEY COULD SELL ENCRYPTED HOMEBREWS AND ROMS ON THE PLAYSTATION STORE LIKE THEY DID WITH THE PSX GAME. THERE MIGHT BE A PROBLEM WITH LICENSING BECAUSE A LOT OF EMULATORS EMULATE NINTENDO SYSTEMS AND SONY AND NINTENDO ARE COMPETETORS. THE OTHER EMULATORS DON'T COMPETE WITH SONY ANYMORE OR ACTUALLY WORK WITH SONY SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT. SO QJ IF YOU ARE READING THIS, COULD YOU PLEASE TAKE MY IDEA AND SEND IT TO SONY SO THEY COULD CONSIDER IT. I THINK THIS WILL MAKE THOSE 3.10, 3.11, 3.30 AND ABOVE FIRMWARE USERS HAPPY AND DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HACKING. SO ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE TRY TO SEND THIS IDEA TO SONY.

# ... — Guest 2007-04-06 13:36

well first of all that would take to long to organise and only 5% of psp owners actuly use homebrew and not to mention that sony would never get money from your idea. not saying its a bad idea it would be awsome if they could make it work... but it wont

# only 5 % homebrew user ??? — Guest 2007-04-06 13:49

what , only 5 % homebrew user ??ß

thats unreal , when sony hot is for money, they will be have haomebrew and more for her products

i hope dark alex can work for sony and then he will build bugs in the firmwares with he can downgrade

SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH ; MY MOTHERLANGUAGE IS GERMAN SORRY

# IT WOULD TAKE A LOT OF MONEY BUT....... — Guest 2007-04-06 15:13

WHEN SONY DOES THIS THEY WILL MAKE A LOT OF MONEY. THINK OF ALL THESE SYSTEMS THAT ARE NOT USED ANYMORE, BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK THEY'RE NOT IN ANYMORE BECAUSE OF THE NEXT GEN SYSTEMS. THE PSP IS PORTABLE AND HAS A LOT OF EMULATORS WHICH RUN AT FULL SPEED. THIS CAN BRING THESE SYSTEMS BACK. PLUS, SONY IS ADDING A LOT OF FEATURES TO THEIR FIRMWARES WHICH TAKE UP A LOT OF FLASH SPACE. Dark_AleX IS MAKING A 3.30 OE-A WHICH I HEAR HE IS HAVING TROUBLES WITH FLASH SPACE. SONY KNOWS HOW TO COMPRESS THEIR FILES AND HOW TO DO THIS WITHOUT MIXING TWO FIRMWARES. SONY HAS COMPLETE ACCESS TO THE PSP. PEOPLE WOULD GET NEW FEATURES, HOMEBREW AND EMULATORS FOR A SMALL FEE. SONY WOULD MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND LESS PIRACY. SO PLEASE DISREGARD lavasofa's MESSAGE QJ AND SEND THIS IDEA TO SONY.

# Hey ROB G... — GaveUpTomorrow 2007-04-06 15:56

why not send your idea to Sony yourself? Either way, it isn't going to make any difference who send it, Sony isn't going to care, and there is NO WAY they could sell any kind of nes game or sega game, etc without a lot of work to get permissions (which Nintendo wouldn't allow obviously). Plus, Dark-Alex and other hackers are already opening up Sony's firmware's when Sony tries to eliminate homebrew completely, so if they allowed any kind of homebrew, I can guarantee there would be a hole in security somewhere. And stop typing in all caps, it only makes you look like your a ten year old.

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 19:26

i wish they would make a sega saturn emulator like nintendo is doing on the wii.

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 20:32

The PSP is a great multifunction device, for us gadget freaks, it does alot from playing MP3's,Video, web browsing, and maybe GPS functionality,P LEASE...oh and it plays games. Thats it's problem, the games seem to come last EVEN in the commercials for it.Developers are understandable upset Sony isn't pushing the gaming aspect more.To tell you the truth, i bought one TODAY and have to say My ideas for this thing have gaming kinda low on the list.

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 20:47

This was the handheld PlayStation. It had PS2 level games, heavy commitments from virtually every majore (and minor) 3rd party publisher, a new movie format backed by virtually every major Hollywood studio and was going up against a mutated, double screened N64 you touched to play with.... for only $50-100 more. Tell me, what sort of expectations would've been realistic in 2004? What did you expect actually?

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 22:46

http://boards2.sega.com/sega_board/viewtopic.php?t=72933

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 23:19

EGA makes for a good example, they've even had a big PSP push this year with both new experimental IPs and old IP revivals... but they're all outsourced to tiny western firms. SEGA basically killed their own internal PSP R&D, shifting virtually all resources over to DS.

Same thing's happening within a lot of Japanese firms, there's been a conscious near-marketwide shift to scale back PSP efforts to mainly cheapo ports and finishing off previously announced games, while focusing new R&D clearly on DS or mobiles. There's the potential here for a domino effect too, as Japan's pretty easily the leader for handheld game R&D, and Japanese trends will undoubtedly have consequences in western markets...

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 23:35

On the flipside, PSP's already had a far, far more ambitious push than GameCube ever saw from developers, publishers, retail, media, hollywood and really the industry at large. If GameCube had gotten this sort of unconditional upfront support from virtual all sectors of the industry, it'd probably have moved 20 million units in 2 years too. Same goes for Xbox... PSP had branding, positioning and support advantages those platforms could've only dreamed of.

Really, the only console last gen that enjoyed a similarly scaled push to PSP, was PS2. And that's probably the console it should be compared with mainly.

# re — Guest 2007-04-06 23:55

PSP in hardware I would classify as a success. But to developers I think the handhelds a failure. PSP development costs are obviously far more than DS and the games are all selling pretty much horribly now. PSP games started off selling good but now not even the almighty GTA can sell good(The only thing that does is Monster Hunter in Japan). It's not even a GCN situation where everything besides Sonic and Nintendo games sell like crap. Everything except Monster Hunter sells like crap now.

I know multiple people in real life that have a PSP. Not a single one of them use it to play games. Sony succeeded in making a multimedia portable, the only problem is now nobody wants the games.

# caps — Guest 2007-04-07 07:54

your caps lock is on

# sony selling OE's — Guest 2007-04-07 09:48

if sony sells 'new,psp 2' hb enabled r psp and the chances of it bricking are 100 % possible-dead line , loads of returns

even IF they give instrustions to customers on a cd???wtf that would baffle the other 95% . summit wrong anywhere BUMFFFFFF BRICKED.,

psp is mainly a device for birthdays/chrimbo to kids go figure.

# huh? — Guest 2007-04-07 16:17

what did that guy just say? i need bumffffff translation

# hmm — Guest 2007-04-07 16:27

i use mine mostly for games. it was just three days ago when i said "well... lets try loading all the songs i love onto it." and i did. and brought it to school. it was great. but mostly i use it for games. i don't have too many thought because they cost too much money (well the ones i want mostly). i like i generally have some music and maybe a small video. and then load some games on the mem-stick and stick one in the back so i don't have to lug a huge bag of stuff around lol

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