"PSPgo will fail miserably" - McCabe

[wraggster]

The managing director of the UK's largest independent games chain, Chips, has told GamesIndustry.biz he expects the PSPgo to "fail miserably".

Revealing his views on the newly released digital handheld, Don McCabe said: "My own personal opinion is that it's a no-go. I've been to a number of presentations to see if there's anything there and I don't feel it'll go anywhere to be honest.

"I'm 99.9 per cent sure it's going to fail miserably, in which case it's going to put back other potential people coming into that digital space."

This failure could be a positive for retailers of course, who stand to lose out on sales of software and trade-ins if digital sales completely take over from boxed ones. "From a retailers point of view the PSPgo is a good idea," he said.

"I heard from someone at Sony saying 'this steps our authority on the digital space and signals our intent,' and actually what I think is that they'll scare the crap out of anyone else who tries to follow."

McCabe's comments follow those of ShopTo CEO Igor Cipolletta, who confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz that sales of the PSPgo for the e-tailer have got off to a slow start. Part of the problem, said Cipolletta, is that retailers are unable to discount the console's relatively high price in the form of bundles, due to the absence of physical software.

But a secondary issue, said McCabe, is that while publishers see tremendous growth possibility in digital downloads, they are currently struggling to make profit from them.

"Everybody looks at Apple and says two billion downloads - well, yeah but out of two billion downloads I'd say maybe 70 per cent of those have been free. And of the ones that they've paid for they'll have paid pennies for.

"Apple's a tremendous success story for Apple, it's not a tremendous success story for anybody else."

As such, digital is a pipe dream at the moment, added McCabe, who compares its current state as "like the dotcom boom".

"It's going to come, no matter what, but a very small amount of people are actually going to go on to make any money out of it. One or two will make serious money and they'll be held up as 'you too can do this'. Whenever you see anyone producing fantastic figures, just ask them how much they actually made from it."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...serably-mccabe

[Chameleon]

Just a bitter old "miserable" man complaining.
Regardless it will sell. Sounds like another incomplete Sony product being marketed to the public.. maybe in a couple years ill buy v2 of the psp-go.

[symbal]

The N-gage was the first and only dedicated gaming phone and it's failure scared the crap out of manufacturers from making another gaming phone, the Iphone's the closest yet but that still not for proper gaming, i think he's right that this thing will seriously slow down digital distribution.

[Zin0099]

what sony needs to do is ditch that usb adapter for the camera/gps to hook and make athing that turns the pspgo into a pspgo netbook!

with the ability to put our umds in the back and small cellphone keyboard plus another 6-10hour battery life with it
a port to charge and to hook up to the tv

[dcdood]

the go needs UMD... you cant have a system for 5 years and then suddenly drop its origanal mainstream media... this is the only reason i hate the go, and reason enough to keep me with my 3000 and cfw 1000

[Zin0099]

yeah but 3000 model is here 2 stay! but the other factor is psp-3000/GO will be the next psp-4000 so we will see what happens. also wasn't sony suppose 2 release 225 games that wasn't already on the psn? and we only about 100 of the 225 was released so i'm wondering if tommorrow (THURSDAY) the other games will show up?