PSP's biggest problem is piracy - Sony

[Shrygue]

via Eurogamer


Sony Computer Entertainment America PR exec Rob Dyer has admitted that piracy is a major problem for the PSP handheld, despite what he sees as a strong slate of games.

"I think we had a great line-up last year. The biggest problem that plagued PSP was piracy; we have not been able to slow that down," Dyer told Industry Gamers (via VG247).

"Publishers, when they put out good games, are not getting the same sales results that they got a few years back. So piracy's been a big issue and we're working on that very diligently to bring about some solutions," he said.

Dyer said that third-parties have not been sufficiently put off to stop PSP having a bumper 2010 of releases, hinting that some big announcements are on the way.

"That said, we still have a very robust line-up this year from third parties on the PSP, starting with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. I won't go through the whole line-up because I want our third-party partners to make those announcements, but there are some big, big titles coming out this year and you'll see those announcements at GDC, DPS (Destination PlayStation) or E3."

Dyer said the PSPgo was partly intended to answer the piracy problem, but admitted that gamers found it confusing and overpriced. "We wanted to find a way to give the consumers what they want, so if they didn't want to go to a retailer they could stay at home and download. And we were hoping really to eliminate the piracy issue," he said.

"Did the PSPgo confuse [consumers]? Yeah, I think the higher price point didn't help matters any either."

[wraggster]

yep price is too much and the fact we cant play our legit UMDs on it put many off, i have around 40 UMD films and games and its the major reason for me not to get one

[symbal]

In the last year i haven't found a single Psp game i want to play through more than once and over it's whole life i can finger count the ones i do, i know it's a vicious circle with piracy leading to bad games and bad games leading to piracy but Sony and the developers have to make the first move to get it sorted, and blaming piracy is like standing in the middle of the road and blaming a truck for running you over, you know it's gonna happen so you responsible for moving.

[Paris/Tokyo]

This is sad. I bet Sony doesn't even care about PSP's homebrew scene, and will just Fort Knox the PSP2. My PSP would've collected dust while I waited for a quality title instead of the shovelware PS2-lite or Flash ports that saturates the handheld's library. Instead, I've basically used the system every day for the past 5 years, all thanks to an incredibly robust homebrew scene.

[mungrin]

If there were any good games made for PSP i would buy them but every game i try, i play it for 5 minutes and then delete.Heres the other thing,the piracy games are actually better than the UMD versions.I have a 32gb mem stick and can put all my downloaded games on it,but the UMD games i gotta lug em around.I'd buy SF4 for PSP.My PSP is mainly used for homebrew however.

[PoorKingz]

In the last year i haven't found a single Psp game i want to play through more than once and over it's whole life i can finger count the ones i do, i know it's a vicious circle with piracy leading to bad games and bad games leading to piracy but Sony and the developers have to make the first move to get it sorted, and blaming piracy is like standing in the middle of the road and blaming a truck for running you over, you know it's gonna happen so you responsible for moving.

If there were any good games made for PSP i would buy them but every game i try, i play it for 5 minutes and then delete.Heres the other thing,the piracy games are actually better than the UMD versions.I have a 32gb mem stick and can put all my downloaded games on it,but the UMD games i gotta lug em around.I'd buy SF4 for PSP.My PSP is mainly used for homebrew however.

You guys must be kidding yourselves. This isn't two or three years ago. If you remember, PSP was just about dead then. Then devs stepped it up and revived the PSP with some awesome games. Great games are still being released regularly now. Kingdom Hearts, the new SOCOM, the new Silent Hill... too many great games to mention. You can't use the excuse that PSP has no good games anymore. It just doesn't work today.

[symbal]

If you can name all the Good games in a single sentence you know there's a problem when it's on a major console, and developers are constantly having to reassure us that they not going to abandon Psp, none of the other consoles have anywhere near this problem.

[osgeld]

and every single one of them is a ps2 dumbsizing, which would have been cool at launch, not years later

[Qmark]

Issue a Public SDK and an 'App Store', then lock it down.
But alas, the Yaroze-era Sony is long gone.

[shirk]

So game distibutors are enjoying new sales records year after year, even outgaining Hollywood movies, but the PSP, which in latter generations is hard if not impossible to jailbreak, isn't profitable because of piracy? Oh please!