Sony still early on PSP curve, says Yoshida

[Shrygue]

via Games Industry (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/sony-still-early-on-psp-curve-says-yoshida)


When it comes to taking the best out of the PSP and delivering it to consumers so they can use it every day for many things, Sony is still early on the curve according to Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida.

"Like when we started with PlayStation One, with videogames as being a toy, and looking at the individual countries when it comes to introducing new aspects to the platform - in our minds we're doing the same sort of thing with the PSP since 2005," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

"It's too early to make judgments - we know there's a lot more that we can do, and with the massive growth of the industry we understand that third party publishers have so many choices, many more than they have resources. Sometimes we struggle to convince them to put more resources into the PSP."

Even so,Yoshida thinks that there are still a lot of good business opportunities on the PSP that will continue to be viable because there are no competing platforms.

"...We've always thought that the PSP as a platform is standing on its own - there's no direct competition, although some people think that the DS is its rival simply because it's portable, but the positioning and the main user base are totally different."

The PSP is outperforming Sony's short-term expectation - mainly due to its success in Japan, where it continues to be the highest-selling platform week after week.

Yoshida says they are really pleased that the system is the most exciting games platform in a major territory, and doesn't seem too concerned that it hasn't achieved the same measure of success in Europe or North America.

"So we continue to support the platform, and we've been doing really well with first party software, and I hope that more developers and publishers see some of the things that the PSP can uniquely offer to them, and its reach into consumers' lives," he said.

[alanparker05]

I really don't think it's going to improve much for psp now that the developers are starting to jump ship i think the only future for the psp now is with new hardware when and if they release the psp2 they need to add features that can attract a wider group of people with things like accelerometer, built in memory, integrated camera, bluetooth and the option of a version that works as a phone sony need to realise that they can't rely on people blindly following them and are going to the nds and xbox360

[Aryn]

"When it comes to taking the best out of the PSP and delivering it to consumers so they can use it every day for many things, Sony is still early on the curve according to Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida."
The solution: Block access to the UMD from third party programs (and perhaps the firmware can scan for and automatically delete ISOs, ROMs, and other formats used for piracy while the PSP is on?) As you probably know by now, you can not keep PSP users on a short leash, and you should give them an alternative to a hacked firmware that makes piracy easy.

"...We've always thought that the PSP as a platform is standing on its own - there's no direct competition, although some people think that the DS is its rival simply because it's portable, but the positioning and the main user base are totally different."
In my area many gamers that I know are ditching their PSP systems or putting them away and purchasing Nintendo DS systems, with a whole list of reasons besides the fact that it is portable. Failure to acknowledge the DS as a rival and a threat to the PSP will only hurt the PSP in the end.

[osgeld]

failure to notice the ds is in direct competition is plain ignorant

yes they are both portable, yes they both play games, yes they are in direct competition

just cause sony wants to beleive that the psp is the next walkman doesnt make it so

i like to believe im a millionaire, but im not , im a working class grunt, who has specialized skills, and more knowledge than most of my co-workers, but im still in the working class grunt category

the fact that sony thinks the psp curve is still early is just silly, portible devices like the psp at almost the same power were around well before the psp, and its nothing really magical (ive got a ipaq with a 233 mhz cpu and a ati 3d gpu almost 3 years older than the psp)

in order to make this a special property they need

A) GAMES and not just crappy ps2 ports / remakes

B) connectivity, not only to the ps3, that most realistic minded folks cant afford, but true conectivity to the pc tru dedicated software, and not just media manager

C) support, US gps, cameras that are more than 1mp and cost less than a 7mp dedicated, cheaper memory devices, tv out that works with sd tv's (since the psp is no where near hd anyway), tv tuners, umd movies that cost less than much higher quality dvd's, ect ect ect

as an added bonus, if they were smart they would not unlock the firmware but make a dev kit for home users ... apple didnt become the king of pc's cause of their locks and proprietaries, the x86 platform did cause its open to develop on

really sony, you think with all the failed crap that you made but refused to set free you would learn, if you really love it set it free and it will come back to you