The PSP Online Store - ‘A Glimpse Towards The Future’
Two weeks ago, Sony launched the PSP PC store with a whimper. It debuted just two days before Thanksgiving, offering PSP owners the chance to download some free themes and buy and download few old and new PSP games. I didn’t hear about any of it until the weekend when it got mentioned on the 1UpYours podcast.
Why the quiet launch? Was Sony embarrassed about it?
Late last week I interviewed Eric Lempel, the PlayStation director of network operations in charge of the store.
And we talked about everything.
Seriously. I don’t think we missed a thing. Want to know what the plans are for this store? The pricing strategy? Why it requires a PC? Whether it will support Macs? Which titles formerly on UMD will be coming to the store (he revealed that “SOCOM Fire Team Bravo” and “Twisted Metal: Head-On” will hit by year’s end)? Whether UMD titles will ever be released on the download store the same day as they are in game shops? Which PS3 games he’d like to see on the PSP store? The plans for import titles?
And more, more, more. Check out the chock-full interview below.
One excerpt to get you thinking:
Multiplayer: In general the store looks like it comes one step closer to fulfilling a lot of PSP owners’ fantasy of “I want to download everything. I don’t want that UMD thing.” A lot of people were thinking the PSP revision might even do away with the UMD and this whole thing is going to be like an iPod, it’s all going to be downloadable. In your mind, is this a step closer to that? Is this a way of acknowledging those people in any way? Is this the PSP showing that download is where the future is?
Lempel: I would say the industry is at an interesting point right now where we have the ability to quickly deliver content to people. So the retail business is still very important to us. And the UMD business is still doing very well for us and our retail partners. I don’t think we’re ready to look at that and say, “This is the way it should go right now.” But we’re at an interesting point in the industry where consumers know they can get things fast and they’re getting used to it with other devices from other companies. So it’s something we always wanted to do. Technically we didn’t have the ability in the past with some of our hardware. But now that we do we want to start opening up some of these channels and getting consumers used to that and experimenting with it.
I would say it’s a glimpse towards the future. Definitely just by releasing a UMD title in the store it definitely puts ideas in people’s heads, but no I wouldn’t categorize this as a shift in business model at this point.
Multiplayer: Can you describe the PSP store and what the goals are for it?
Eric Lempel, Director of PlayStation Network Operations, Sony Computer Entertainment of America: The key feature is to get content to the PSP in a way that we couldn’t do it before. You’re well aware that currently the only way to get games to a PSP is to have [PSP Onwers] either download demos which we offer on our PSP website or to have them go to the store to buy UMDs. That creates some challenges if you want to create some new and original type of games that may not necessarily be — I wouldn’t want to say worthy, but — up to the caliber of a UMD release and something that we can offer exclusively on the network. So we wanted to create a way to get those games out to consumers. That was one of the primary reasons for it. Examples of that on the PlayStation 3 are games like “flow” and “Calling All Cars” that we wouldn’t sell on Blu-Ray but are clearly very popular and we sell them over the network. We’ve got a lot of interest from the developer community and our internal teams about doing games for the PSP that wouldn’t be available on UMD so that’s one of the main reasons why we did it.
The other piece of it is to get those PSOne classic titles to PSP owners that don’t have a PS3 at this time. … Clearly we don’t want to ignore the giant base of PSP owners.
And the other thing was to really create a nice clean place where people can get a lot of content for their PSP that’s all formatted correctly, that all works well. It’s all something we’ve looked at and said, “This is something that should go on your PSP” [That includes] themes, wallpapers. We have the ability to do music. Longer term we’ll be looking at movies and TV shows.
Multiplayer: Who is this really for? Which PSP owners are you trying to reach?
Lempel: Short-term, right now, it’s for the more engaged PSP user, but longer term I think everybody is going to want to check it out. We made a little bit of noise around the launch, but there isn’t a whole lot of content that’s really new. But there will be. You’ll be seeing a lot more content coming on there in the near future that is made exclusively for the PSP and isn’t available anywhere else. The other side of it is PSP owners now that are getting into PSP for the first time may not find some of those older UMD titles that were really strong at retail. There’s only so much shelf space at retail. This allows us to open up the whole library of PSP titles.
Multiplayer: A bunch of questions come to mind about this. Many people are asking about the requirement to access this store via PC. Does the road map call for a point where I can access the store using just my PSP?
Lempel: Clearly that’s something we’re thinking about. With the capability of the PSP it’s something that should be possible, so it’s definitely something we’re thinking about. It’s just a matter of priorities and some technology that we need to make it all work right and make sure the content is delivered securely, just to protect some of our [intellectual properties]. Yeah it’s definitely something we’re thinking about.
Multiplayer: Why did it make sense to launch on PC? Some might say, “Hey, that doesn’t seem intuitive. Why would they introduce the PC into the equation?”
Lempel: For one thing it was easier. It was easier to create the service and the system on the PC at first. Also, with a lot of content, the PSP is great and has a great screen, but we would need to create a different type of navigation, a different type of browsing system to get through all the content that will be on there.
There are also technical challenges behind the scenes that lean toward delivering the content securely, making sure it is protected. Especially because we are dealing with paid content. That creates some challenges as well. That’s why when you use the PC store you use the PlayStation Network downloader application. You download that app quickly and it delivers it securely to your PSP and also protects the content. We figured we could wait and take longer to develop [the store] just for the PSP, but we wanted to get this out sooner rather than later. And also if you look at other space of portable devices, if you look at something like an iTunes, it’s kind of the same thing. I guess the downside is the Apple devices don’t go online, so you wouldn’t expect to buy something from the site but at the same time people are used to going to a PC to purchase a lot of content and download them to the device.
Multiplayer: Speaking of iPods, iTunes supports a syncing function that allows me to plug my iPod into my computer and automatically get new content. Are there plans for anything like that for the PSP store, so I could just plug my PSP in and get new videos or demos on the store?
Lempel: Sure. It currently doesn’t support any functionality like that but that is a feature we’re looking into. We want to do some testing, get consumers used to it, see how they would like things to work. We understand that a lot of the free content on there, people are interested in a good amount of it and they’ll want to just sync up, not browse.
Multiplayer: I think I keep tabs on things pretty well, but this seemed like kind of a low-key launch. Was that always the plan? Are you guys planning something bigger down the road?
Lempel: That was the plan. We thought we would just get it out there. It was a different way to deliver stuff. We do have some original stuff like “Syphon Filter: Combat Ops” which is getting great reviews. But we felt like if we made a big splash there might not be enough there to make everybody happy now. We’re going to ramp up slowly… We really didn’t want to position this as something that’s going to replace all the other ways of getting content for your PSP at this time.
Multiplayer: Is this PSP store accessible if I access the PSN via my PS3?
Lempel: No. You’re going through the PC only at this time. Technically that’s possible, but in order to avoid any confusion, the services are new to a lot of users. If we threw a “Syphon Filter” up there, we don’t want PS3 people downloading it and then realizing they can’t use it. We’ll start off this way but in time we could change that.
Multiplayer: Let’s talk about pricing in all this. You have $14.99 for the UMD titles [titles that were originally released on disc for PSP but are now downloadable via the store]. And for the downloadable original titles, you have $9.99. How uniform are those prices and how did you come upon those pricepoints?
Lempel: It’s similar to pricing on the PlayStation 3 store. Each title is evaluated separately. With the UMD titles we’re taking a different approach, where we’re looking at what that title is selling for in the market or last sold for. We want to keep it around the same price because that’s what it should sell for. And obviously there are a lot of contractual obligations behind the scenes where we have to meet certain prices.
Multiplayer: Right. Retailers would want you to keep it the same, right?
Lempel: Exactly. And we don’t want to cause any channel conflict. We’ll keep it there. And other titles like “Syphon Filter,” each title goes through a lengthy evaluation process. .. Clearly we want to offer great games at a great price for consumers.
Multiplayer: Is it fair to assume other PSP Store games will all be $9.99?
Lempel: With games, and especially with these network games that can vary in size and quality and length of gameplay, we have to look at it carefully and price accordingly. We may create some type of tiers, but no I wouldn’t expect everything to come out at that price.
Multiplayer: You should put out a game at a million dollars and see if anybody buys it. It would be very exclusive.
Lempel: [laughs] We should try it. You never know. Or at least start somewhere. Let’s start at $300.
Multiplayer: What’s the selection process for the UMD titles and is there any guaranteed time window affecting which titles are available? In other words, is the title always going to have been out in retail for at least six months or something like that before it comes to the store?
Lempel: We’re actually working on that policy internally. As you can see we’ve only offered two first-part titles on the store. We’re working on that plan so we can roll it out to our third-party partners. At this time I can’t discuss the policy.
Multiplayer: Can you say if there are any plans to eventually have it day-and-date with releases in the store? Or that it won’t be day-and-date?
Lempel: Right now it won’t be day and date for those titles just to avoid any retail conflict. We appreciate what the retailers do for us. We know this would create some challenges for them.
Multiplayer: How did you pick “WipEout” and “Gangs of London” to be the first two UMD released?
Lempel: They are two very popular titles that have been on the PSP for some time. In the next few weeks we are releasing two more titles to round out some of the earlier hits, which would be “SOCOM Fire Team Bravo” and “Twisted Metal: Head-On.”
Multiplayer: PSOne downloadable titles — the same ones available to PS3 users are also available to PSP users. Is that the plan going forward?
Lempel: That will continue to be the case. As soon as we have one of those titles that has been tested and identified as ready to go it will be available on both stores.
Multiplayer: Does that by extension disqualify PSOne titles that use dual analog from being part of this service since they wouldn’t be usable on PSP?
Lempel: In some cases, yes.
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