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Smack Down: devs discouraged from making PSP games, piracy too high |
Listed in: Interviews, Opinions & Analysis Tags: Europe, interviews, John Koller, Jump Festa, Nintendo, piracy, Sony
The PSP's been getting a lot of flak since last year. I often hear the
questions "where are all the games?" and "what the hell is Sony doing?"
(I mostly hear it from you guys :p.)Maybe these words from Laurent Benadiba, CEO of Smack Down Productions, can give some insight on the situation. At least, from a developer's point of view in Europe.
Benadiba has the following sentiments. First, Sony isn't putting much attention to the PSP - something other developers have expressed as well.
I still believe there's potential, but it's like self-confidence - if you trust yourself, maybe others will trust you. If you don't trust yourself, nobody will trust you.
I think that's what's happened with the PSP - Sony released the product, but they never put enough of a push behind it. Games, ads, better shelf placement - trying to make an effort. I think it was also released at a time when they were still very focused on the PlayStation 3, trying to get it out of the door, that they slightly forgot about it.
Also, the platform needs more ground-breaking games. Unfortunately, piracy is just too rampant to encourage devs to make games:
I think the piracy level is much higher. There's a lot of piracy on the PSP I think. I don't have numbers, but you see people playing on the train, they have empty carts, and this is a big problem.
If it's pretty easy to crack it down, then people won't buy the games, and if people don't buy the games, publishers won't make them - so it doesn't encourage publishers to make games.
Lastly, the PSP just doesn't have the pull to make devs create games for it, when we're talking about cold hard cash:
The other day we were with a publisher, and trying to figure out a business model for a PSP game. It was a big IP, a big license, a top five racing game, and we couldn't work it out, how we could break even. Because there are so few sales on the PSP in Europe now that you have to make a huge title on a small budget just to break even.
It's discouraging publishers from making PSP games - maybe they could do what Nintendo did, and make lots of first party games? Push the level up...
Don't let that get you down though. The rumor mill's been chucking out a lot for the PSP lately, and most of them are good news. I expect we'll see a lot of focus for the PSP from Sony this year. If not, well, Dissidia's coming out this year. That should be enough to last me for a long, long while.
PSP Galore:
- Sony's John Koller: PSP not dying, more PS3 integration in the future
- Rumor bucket: PSP 2 out next year, Motorstorm PSP this year, Lego Potter, new MMO from Square Enix, more
- Rumor alert: all PSP games in 2009 will be available as downloads, more
- PSP galore at Jump Festa 2009
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Comments
The sad point is, there's few games on PSP that are worth buying, most of them are crap ports(jesus, no) or so badly programmed, that freaks users out.
Why not try old, well accepted formula for games, for example Armored Core(mission capable, not some ***** combat 1vs1), Gran Turismo....most power players are playing...psx games on psp. Sad but true.
Also, why not to make a game with unique cdkey, which give you benfits for having original title(like online servers, co-op, comunity etc?)
So devs, stop whining, and make good titles worth buying!
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I strongly agree with this paragraph: "I still believe there's potential, but it's like self-confidence - if you trust yourself, maybe others will trust you. If you don't trust yourself, nobody will trust you.
I think that's what's happened with the PSP - Sony released the product, but they never put enough of a push behind it. Games, ads, better shelf placement - trying to make an effort. I think it was also released at a time when they were still very focused on the PlayStation 3, trying to get it out of the door, that they slightly forgot about it."
sony should really start putting some "REAL" interest in the psp (they sort of are, but they are more focused on stopping piracy than making the psp a whole lot better with better features and what not, which is totally understandable)
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One thing that confuses me is this "just ports" and "rubbish games" mentality. Firstly the system is a portable console, surely ports of existing games that you can play on the go is kind of the point. As for rubbish games, I have more PSP games than any other console, and I think a lot of them are great, especially the mech fighting games (Gundam, Macross etc). Admittedly half my library is imported and UK support is weak, but I don't think the library is as dire as people make out.
Regarding the "empty cartridge slot", I run ISO's myself for the sake of convenience. That doesn't mean I don't own the games I'm playing. When Sony is distributing PSP games via PSN, an empty slot means nothing.
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did they ever think it could also be downloaded from the PS Network that was also implemented? lawl
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Unfortunately, yes I'm a poor kid. Riight.
But very smart one kid, indeed. Why should i buy a game that's clearly overpriced, and really not worth a penny?
Games which are really good, are becoming so popular that EVEN pirates are ENCOURAGING to buy them!
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Fact is, the arguement isn't about justifying piracy at all but recognising the fact that developers have their own part to play in the whole debacle as much as anyone. The PSP catalogue of games is average at best and most of the best uses for the platform come via Emulation.
So who's to blame? Nobody? Everybody? Does it really matter? The PSP is already a dead platform and no amount of finger pointing is going to change that.
The saving grace of course is the fact that by and large the PSP has decent access to a very large backlog of portable gaming goodness thanks to emulation and homebrew - which you can strongly argue presents a better gaming experience on the platform than over 95% of all commercial content for the platform anyway.
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Considering the generally abysmal quality of gaming content thrust onto the market for a quick cash grab, combined with the ruthless and ethically questionable business practises those companies have concerning staff and market competition, do you honestly think for one moment that the average pirate is going to care less about ripping them off for a sale?
C'mon man, be realistic. People pirate games for their own reasons, but I highly doubt you're going to make anyone feel bad about it. In today's souless capitalist economy everyone is forced to scrimp and save where they can - saving money on buying entertainment media is not only an obvious choice, but a smart one as well concerning individual needs.
A classic one is the constant misrepresentati on on behalf of developers on their product. They hype the living ***** out of their game and it turns out to be a total dud - but once you part with your hard earned, you're stuck with the festering pile. Well ***** that!
You can debate chicken and egg scenarios all day about piracy man, but the fact is that you have to be realistic about this issue and drop the martyr approach because it really just doesn't wash anymore.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEY, Don't copy that floppy!" is dead bro. The people have moved on.
GOOD quality games will still get bought and developers of good product will survive, no matter what else happens. It's as simple as that.
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Fact is, with the homebrew scene for the platform approaching maturity there's very little reason to invest in fully priced content when you can emulate the original for free.
Developers nowadays are just *****ing lazy and produce very few original titles for this platform, and of those originals they do produce, only 10% or less of them are worth spit in the first place.
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I don't pirate games, and I don't agree that people should. homebrew is another thing, those PSP's can do some crazy things, if Sony would allow user created content on PSP more, then we might not have the problem, as piracy comes with homebrew.
something that is unfair, the disk and the packaging cost no more than 6 cents. its high priced because these companies are greedy, very greedy, almost 100% of game sales is profit.
in my opinion,
Personally, I don't mind paying for game because you get to enjoy it more, and replay it. if you've worked for it, you realize what that money is worth, what that game took to make.
to all these pirates: do you realize, that downloading and stuff, is like walking into the store, grabbing the game, and running out of the store. then you go home and wast some bandwidth.
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Yes, and I still don't care. I'd do that too if I knew I wouldn't get caught
Piracy to me is just that good ole instant gratification.
90% of the games I pirate I don't even play, or I play through them once and just delete them. There is no justification, I just don't care for spending 20+ dollars on something I might play only once. The only games that I play more than once are the emulators and homebrew, and funny enough, I own the games that I play on the emulators, I wonder why that is...?
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It's our fault for not buying them and just pirating them.
I really like having homebrew on my PSP and playing emulators are really fun and it's portable.
I feel guilty for even downloading games... *sigh* it's just I don't have a lot of money and my parents need to work everyday for 20 hours to get food in my mouth and the bills are always in the thousands.
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When the world becomes stable, I will try to buy games.
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What a biased idiot opinion - just because people are playing a ISO - DOES NOT mean the game is pirated and in fact many people i know - allmost all of my friends just choose to play there backed up ISO off the memory sitck because who the hell would want too waste battery power
Not only that but who wants to lug around a bunch of disc with them - the thing is supposed to be portable to sony should have implemented a system to upload games onto the PSP legally then this problem would not exist but to say people with empty "Carts" are playing pirated games is plain ignorant
And not only that but sonys scheme to make you buy a PS3 just to play ps1 games on your psp , well who the hell would want to do that , that is plain stupid , so as far as im concerned this is all sonys fault, and if they want to complain more then they should have allowed people to use the PSP openly under there conditions instead of keeping it all secretive and very proprietary to there standards
enough said....
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LOL
There's a difference about bragging about stealing ***** and looking at the reality of the situation and the underlying reason why.
It's braindead morons like yourself that can't tell the difference.
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sony needs to get some better games look at spiderman web of shadows when u look at the trailer ur like wow i want that game then wen u take ur hard earned money and buy it start playin, ur gonna be like what kind of gameboy advance game is this, then wen u look at the ps3 version ur like whoa. very dissapointing, i'm not spendin no more money on waste games i rather download it and if i dont like it i'll just delete it. we need better games.
next thing we need more apps for the psp if it wasnt for CFW who knows when when we would have gotten to watch youtube on our psp. all sony do is come out with some bull***** update. thank god for the homebrew devs if it werent for them i wouldnt have a psp right now. a psp has so much potential wen it is hacked.
they made the psp 3000 i thought i was goin to have a cam or touch screen or something different, turned out that there was only two a mic and a bettter screen wow sony we the psp fans love that JK.
all i'm sayin is we need better games and apps not any gps ***** look at japan they can watch t.v on there psp already, i'm so jealous. and F##K you smackdown studio maybe because u guys aint makin ***** ur dissin the psp console.
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Well IM 1 of the piracy ***** to...BUT!
I download game to test it out ... see if I like it or not...If I do like it then ...Im very sure that I'll buy the game..
IF it ***** like some title like NFS on the psp...then yeah screw it...
IF like buy it, if not screw it!
Thats my opinion...
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It's also a timing issue - at launch DLC wasn't as widespread as it is now. The portable media was small and expensive. The fact that memory stick capacity now exceeds UMD capacity, and that DLC is so easy to implement isn't Sony's fault, but they should have led where they've chosen to follow.
The Japanese market is very healthy. Only the Western devs and players seem to have this piracy/marketing issue, and I've lost count of the clever Japanese PSP adverts I've seen on Youtube, as opposed to maybe 2 I've seen in the UK.
If Sony wants to rescue PSP (and I'm not convinced it does) then it needs to do the following:
Encourage Devs to release their catalogues over PSN - as iTunes proved, when you have a legit source for files people WILL use it. SCEE has proven crap at this.
Get Demo's on PSN - I don't think there are any PSP demos on UK store, so I have to download to test a game - it's not like I can try it out in store, and mags like Games TM seem to be ignoring the system altogether, so reviews aren't easy to come by either.
Break down the barriers and translate more Japanese games for the Western market. Some of the best DS games are Japanese oddities - Bangaio-O, Elite Beat Agents and Phoenix Wright are all very Eastern styles of game and extremely popular in the West - there's tons of Japanese RPG's and Phoenix Wright style storybook games on PSP that we'll probably never see. Not to mention Gundam, Macross, Hitman Reborn and Soul Eater (which may have licensing issues I suppose, but I'd like to know at least). Those are off the top of my head anyway.
Finally, market the system properly. I could weep when I see Sony's advertising, it looks like it was knocked up by a second year college student.
Sadly for PSP, it may take a new machine for these lessons to take, but having been stung by the original, I'm not sure a second system would necessarily succeed in the West, and it could become a Japanese success that never finds its way across the ocean.
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A fanboy is someone just like you who doesn't even consider looking at the grey area - all you ever see is black and white and you admonish those who don't adhere to the same ideal.
Fact is, I am personally not condoning the act of piracy either, but I certainly can understand why it's such a problem in the industry and to be quite honest, it's only a minority reason the fact that it's easy that makes it such a rampant problem.
Perhaps if you looked beyond the activities of those evil pirates you are so quick to judge, you might realise that many players have a very substantial stake in the problem.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the bulk of the problem doesn't lie with the gamers/pirates at all but rather the developers and distributors who only look at gaming as a financial enterprise.
It's hardly any wonder why gamers and devs/publishers can't see eye to eye on the matter when the underlying reason for participation come from completely different ends of the spectrum.
Just because some vested interest says a certain group of people are bad doesn't automatically mean it's so. Don't be another brainwashed consumer - think for yourself and realise in a capitalist society, using your own morals against you isn't an act of right, but another method of marketing.
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but i don't really know about that.
the ease of using illlegal copies games on psp is a major factor. there is pretty much no way to protect against it, unless a developer would start making dedicated games for psp-3k only (meaning that they would refuse to start on older consoles). but that would probably meet with a serious backlash from users.
as a hardware platform psp is standing good, because there is lots and lots of homebrew, and a lot of creative people who write really amazing apps. there is way much more to psp than just playing. it's a quite useful portable media center.
if psp wasn't homebrew-friendly it would not interest as many people as it does now.
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