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.”