Sony explains "recipe for success" on PSP
- Posted September 25th, 2008 at 04:59 EDT by
- 12 Comments
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) has responded to an article on the PlayStation Portable's slowing publisher support by UK magazine Edge, promising "significant growth" in 2009.
SCEA head of hardware marketing John Koller acknowledged that the PSP was having difficulties - "we’ve been very open about the fact that there are fewer games this year” - but argued that this merely reflected lacklustre hardware sales in 2006.
“Decisions made 20-22 months ago from a development cycle perspective are affecting the quantity of titles available today,” Koller explained. “20-22 months ago developers and publishers were looking at the PSP hardware and thinking ‘It’s not selling as well, maybe it’s time to move our resources elsewhere.’”
Koller also claimed that third parties were still adjusting to the console's shifting target audience, as "a lot of publishers that were making mature-rated games that were ports from console found they weren’t selling very well.”
“When we launched the PSP it launched at a 28-year old, heavily male, New York subway [demographic], and that slowly trended down," he went on. "Now we’re in the mid-teens with a lot of tracking even younger than that. Our research shows that in the next 12 months young moms actually are set to have the highest propensity to purchase the hardware and software for their young children.”
So how DO you make a profitable game for PSP?
“The recipe for success on the PSP resides simply in providing franchise games that are strong brand names like on consoles, but have unique gameplay on the system,” Koller insisted. “You cannot have ports. We used God of War: Chains of Olympus this year as an example of that, as well as Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, and Midnight Club, which is going to be launching in the next few weeks. Those three games are titles that have very strong brand names on console but are coming over with unique gameplay on the PSP.”
Koller concluded by hinting at several "strong" unannounced projects. "We have a number of very strong franchise games on the docket that will be launching next year. We haven’t gone public with those, and many third-parties have not yet either because they’re concentrating on holiday, but we have a number of very strong titles coming.”
Comments
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Odium_Generis_Humani
- 5:50am BST - September 25th, 2008
- 2
Hm. Make games for the system? It took 4 years to figure out that watered down PS2 ports didn't work? Idiots.
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IONIXX |
IONIXX- 8:03am BST - September 25th, 2008
- 4
nnnnnnnnnnnaah, i dont know, people dont really play games tha much on psp, and i know ALOT of people actually do k?, but u know, most people who have a psp, also have a ps3, or ..."maybe" and xbox360, and then when u play games on either one of THOSE consoles, then go play somthin on a psp, its just awfull really, i think sony should keep focusing on its multimedia possibilities, cuz the gameboy age is LONG gone lol, besides, one of the largest things people use their psps for infact, is playing music and video's, so there u go,
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Alpha2
- 3:20pm BST - September 25th, 2008
- 8
I've YET to actually watch a video on my PSP because I hate transcoding videos. it's a waste of time, I could be watching a movie for the hour that it takes these applications to turn it into a "PSP' movie. and THEN you have to hope that the conversion process didn;t turn the movie into an unwatchable blurry mess! They promised us AVI support on the PSP just after they gave it to the PS3. WHAT'S TAKING SO DAMN LONG?
But I will say it's not Sony's fault that developers didn;t know what to do with the PSP, the've been doing the same thing on the GBA for years. "Hey we just made Super nubrubber for the consoles, lets port that to the GBA!" "It'll look horrible!" "So what people will still buy it because it's on the GBA!" they tried to do the same thing with the PSP and thought it would work better because the games would look exactly the same and when it didnt work they said "screw the PSP" like lazy idiots. Meanwhile People were sayign for years "GIVE US ORIGINAL GZAMES!" and they ignored us until Sony actually started making good money with original games like Daxter. So it's not sony's fault the 3rd parties are idiots, but sony IS stupid for not captializing on what WOULD make the PSP a great multimedia device by giving us better video codec support so we can actually USE that screen for a movie without paying 15 bucks for a UMD without special features.
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PS3-The Ultimate Machine
- 10:18pm BST - September 25th, 2008
- 11
They better have more games in 09,as i can't be playing R:Retribution the whole year(unless it's online is really awesome).and lol@Odium's comment.
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chubacca
- 2:55pm BST - September 29th, 2008
- 12
I can't be bothered with PSP anymore - I want easy to work with devices offering good multimedia options and excellent support for common formats.
I honestly believe Sony are hurting themselves by trying to make their products a media fortress that only they have the key... the world moved past this point years ago, and Sony are just falling further and further behind in terms of technology, and "consumer freindly" brand recognition. As for the user base... no one buys it for UMD movies... it's relying on games and what do they expect to get with nothing but expensively priced ....re-runs. As I said... after waiting almost 5 years to get something out of my old PSP - I can't be bothered anymore and have moved on.
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