Portable Positioning Article

Good luck. You'll need it!

"If Sony can't get reasonable pricing (and that means matching the discounted retail prices of old PSP titles and resisting the urge to charge an unjustified "digital premium")"

This is where they'll fail.

I really hope the PSP does see the sort of changes listed in the article. It's exactly the sort of stuff that would get me interested in buying one.

I dont think the comment about a slimline PS3 being more expensive, allowing them to cut the current stock price would work... making a device slimmer is cheaper, so unless they stick a larger disk in it, i dont see where this "Extra" cost would come from. Everyone seems convinced that the price cut is going to be in the Autumn, I think Sony cannot wait that long, unless the slimline isnt ready yet.

I have an old fashioned fat PSP and I like its form factor - it's comfortable to play games with (more so than the DS). I like its durable, solid feel - so I don't want fragile sliding screens.

One or two UMDs and a few PSN games on the memory stick is more than enough entertainment to carry round with me. I certainly don't see the point in cramming my PSPs memory full of MP3s and crap quality videos.

Please don't turn the PSP into an all-round portable media player. How many people actually want one of those anyway?

It's interesting to see where the PSP goes but seeing as I'd need to reninvest in games for the new model (unless some good person hacks that to!) I don't think I'll be biting. It may be too little too late IMO though, and of course there is still the little matter of most of it's software being a tad poo.

I'm with paul_haine though where they will fall down for sure is on PSN pricing of the new PSP games. RRP is their guide as Mr Reeves said once before, and with no competition for sales they won't care.

"If Sony can't get reasonable pricing (and that means matching the discounted retail prices of old PSP titles and resisting the urge to charge an unjustified "digital premium")"

Is this even possible? Existing PSP games cost next to nothing.

I wonder how pissed of existing PSP owners are going to be once they realise they have been abandoned?

"Is this even possible? Existing PSP games cost next to nothing. "

150 euro is not next to nothing but it's a fair price. The only thing that has stopped me picking one up is that I want one of those new ones and not the shitty old design.

"I wonder how pissed of existing PSP owners are going to be once they realise they have been abandoned?"

The PSP is more than four years old now, I don't think anybody expects any console to be supported in perpetuity.

While a lack of backwards compatability isn't exactly unprecedented with consoles, I now feel like a bit of a mug for having bought UMD copies of my games. Yes, I've enjoyed them, yes, they were worth the money, but still.

I like being able to trade in old kit, especially when files are so easily transferred these days.

There was a rumour of a device to transfer them to a memory card on a forum thread somewhere, I guess that's been sunk?

im sure sony wont screw users over by not allowing backwards compatibility by some form of coping umds to the pc

Surely the one thing stopping the PSP from fulfilling its potential as a proper handheld PlayStation is a second stick. Integrate that and suddenly it becomes a much more attractive and usable machine for a vast array of games.

Good article

I was thinking yesterday how Apple can just come into the market and then dominate it. Ipods are a market leader small, cheap and simple to operate.

The iphone is a massive success.

Sony should be dominating the market as it has fingers in all the pies. Sometimes I think Sony forgoe ease of use for greater protection of their IPs.

PSP is just to clunky at what it does. Game are good but slow and noisy, the webrowser is awkward to use. Movies suffer the same fate as games and so its not a truly portable system.

My recommendations for the new system:

Keep UMD but have a transfer to memory-card system as redcrayon suggested.
Better web-browser
More games and not just PS2 remakes, hell even get some DS games ported.
I'm not sure about the second stick but wont complain if they add one.

Even then it will have to have a killer-app to make me get a new one.

It seems a make or break situation for sony. If the ps3 doesn't start increasing sales soon surely its going to go the way of the dreamcast. I mean capcom abandoned its monster hunter game for the ps3 due to huge development costs which couldn't be justified at the expected sales level. A lot of games are a smidgen better on the much cheaper 360 anyway. The ps3 needs to be £199MRP and discounted to about £150 to really sell well surely as I've seen offers where the ps3 has dipped to just over £200 and the response hasn't been massive.

I wish Sony would read this..

There is a huge omission from this article which kind of undermines the whole point:

Yes, endemic piracy has effectively strangled PSP software sales to the extent that its generally forgotten how successful Sony has been at selling the actual hardware (40mil + units is a substantial number of units), but the situation on the DS is arguably even worse.

"R4" carts are incredibly common and easy to come by, and a far more user-friendly method for playing "warez" than flashing a PSP with custom firmware. Piracy on DS is actually worse than PSP.

The only reason its generally considered to have less impact is that software production has been affected less. But the reason why that is, is purely that (1) the costs for developing a DS title are the lowest of any console format, and (2) the DS market covers the most casual sectors (kids, women) who are the most likely to make impulse buys and have the lowest likelihood of familairity with devices like the R4.

That being said, the situation with DS piracy is so bad that sales in certain territories (Southern Europe for one) have effectively flat-lined over the past few months. Its got to the state that many publishers are considering simply withdrawing from those markets as its simply no longer worth it.

I quite like the PSP, but it doesn't really get a look in compared to my DS. I just like my DS games more, to the point I just traded in my PSP for more DS games. It's not like there aren't some great games out for PSP, but generally the good ones are games you can get better versions of on proper consoles. There aren't many really designed for the format and it's foibles, like Locoroco.

A very doom and gloom article on Sony...again...

The PS3, for my money, is the most complete package of the current line-up and selling well and the PSP has still shifted over 40m units! It may be behind the DS, but it's a very different beast. It's almost like criticising Porsche form not selling as many Cayennes as Ford do Mondeos. They cleary appeal to different people but are both a success in their own rights.

OK, so they're not market leaders any more - well done to the competition I say. The eb and flow of global business and product development. It shouldn't detract from the fact that they make great products that are enjoyed by tens of millions of people - more of an achievement than any of us can lay claim to.

EG = Daily Express?

As it is I sold my PSP for a DS and sold my Wii60 for a PS3 but that's just me. They're all great products.

And to anyone who does pirate anything, be it games, film or music: grow up, get a life, stop fuelling organised crime and put yourself in the shoes of the people who dedicate years of their life crafting art/entertainment only to have some selfish twerp steal in on the home stretch. And before you moan about prices: see above recommendation, question your ability to save money before lashing out with juvenile remarks and remind yourself that if you're in a posiiton to own a pc or console anyway, on the grand, global scheme of things: you're a very rich and fortunate person who simply needs to exercise greater degrees of maturity and patience.

Another round of big complicated games best played at home hours at a time will not change a thing. When the average session of a game is 30 minutes and more, there is hardly any time you can play this device on the go.

The problems with PSP have always been manifold, but I still like it as a system. When you get past the shoddy battery life (I own version1!), poor analogue control, PS2 ports and get to the proper stuff designed for the system it can be a great piece of hardware.

UMD has always been horrific as a format choice, but being first to launch a download only console could be pretty interesting. Why they would do PSP mk 4 instead of PSP2 though I have no idea.

As for PS3, the strategy of slim PS3 at current price point, and dropping the PS3 price makes sense. More essential exclusives would help as well...

I think the PSP is a great little piece of hardware. It is really robust - I use it as an MP3 player when jogging, and to catch up on last nights TV and play games on the train. It has been dropped more time than I can remember, and looks like it's lost in a fight against a brick and some sandpaper.

I had a couple of Ipods which basically shook apart, smashed or malfunctioned due to vigorous use, but my PSP has been through hell and it's still fully functional, which is a surprise since the clunky mechanical UMD drive is such a throwback.

Also, it doesn't have to be cracked to remove the need for the UMD drive: The main games are available as downloads from Playstation store (along with a selection of PSOne classics.)


I would love to see the UMD removed on the next model, as it feels like carrying ye olde Mini Disks of yore: bulky and unwieldy.

My hands are in the fire for a totally surprising slim360!

For sony it's all a matter of games and not hardware. PS2 had a great portfolio, but no so on Psp and ps3. I have yet to see a game that can convince me to buy a ps3. Of course there are some pretty good games out, but not that I would spend upwards of 400 euros for it.

Kids still consider the ps3 as the premium choice though. So don't write it off yet.

I think the articles view on an expensive slimline PS3 are about right and perhaps a price drop on the basic model.
(More expensive presumable because they would have to use better materials even with the removal of power supply to keep the machine cool and allow it to be as slim as possible, that and some things like having an SSD instead of a standard hard drive are really expensive.
That and if there was any way to keep the power supply in and make the ps3 smaller sony would do it. Also because they can charge more because eveyone will expect them too, so they can)

It seems the slimline flash PSP is inevitable what with the ramp up in PSP titles on the PS store.

"Surely the one thing stopping the PSP from fulfilling its potential as a proper handheld PlayStation is a second stick. "
That. I have a "day one" one... the fatty. Though, I stopped using it ages ago because of that. Some lovely games I have, like X-Men Legends and Darkstalkers, but a 2nd stick is a must, or... just change the type of games/target completly.

"Another round of big complicated games best played at home hours at a time will not change a thing. When the average session of a game is 30 minutes and more, there is hardly any time you can play this device on the go. "

There's nothing to stop them releasing shitty little throwaway games as well, if they want.

I think the point has been missed, to some extent. It's all very well trying to make the PSP into a truly portable device (not something you play on the sofa when the other half is hogging the TV), but the actual games need to be portable as well.

In my opinion, the 'handheld PS2' idea was never going to work, history tells us that the complex power-draining portables pretty much always get brushed aside by simpler, sturdier genuinely portable hand-held devices.

For all the talk of Gran Turismo Portable, it's actually going to be the games that can be played in 15-30 minute blasts that will really make the new PSP competitive.

Can they really make it look like the front cover picture. That will be a match for the iphone in terms of style. It will have to be special to sto the momentum the iphone has, especially considering controllers are in development for the Iphone 3.0. GAME ON

"and of course there is still the little matter of most of it's software being a tad poo."

So you're among the few who have actually given a lot of its software a go?

I for one tend to be surprised by how good much of it is, loading times aside. It's the underdog of this generation.

"There's nothing to stop them releasing shitty little throwaway games as well, if they want."

Yeah, because "quick" games are necessarily "shitty". Those damn casual gamers!

By the way, installing a cracked OS and buying a memory stick big enough to hold seven to ten games at a time comes highly recommended. The PSP is a much more enticing concept when it's not held back by the UMD drive and the need to carry around a lot of UMD discs. Sony should have made this possible from the get-go.

The only thing Sony actually need to do is adding all UMD games to PS Store. So you can buy ALL psp games not only on UMD obut also through digital distribution.
So, you'll be able to have 1 game on inserted UMD + a number of games from PSN on your memory card. What's really need to be changed in hardware, IMO:
1) PSP's 2000-3000 are too fragile. I want a model with solid carcass, preferably metal.
2) PSP needs a decent screen, without interlace problems.
3) PSP should have some internal flash memory.
If they will announce something like this, I'll buy it for sure.

Don't fail me, Sony.

The comments on reasonable download pricing are spot on, I know for a fact I would buy several games at £3/4 and probably none at £6 each (for example).

The 15-30 min thing is spot on. The games I play are all those you can stick on for a short journey and then save and go.

After reading this i felt the need to address some points in the article. Here goes:

"it's too big"
No it's not. If anything, it could be bigger. Portable doesn't mean "needs to fit in a body cavity". The size is perfect for hand-holding, and the button spacing and screen spacing are perfect. The screen can never be big enough, but obviously needs to be small enough to make the console hand-held; as is it's fine.

"ipod replacement"
This one really gets me worked up. Why does the DS sell so well? Why does the PS2 still sell so well? Because it plays games. Not because it plays music. I own a portable music player the size of a USB key. It holds 8 Gb of music in formats the PSP will probably never support and plays for 16 hours straight with better sound quality and user control. PSP can never compete with that, so why should Sony even try? Sure, it IS possible to use the PSP as a music player, but it's a gaming console for crying out loud. It will never make a good iPod replacement because it was never really meant to do that; the primary focus (considering it's controls and screen) is gaming. Making the PSP smaller to make it a better iPod replacement will obviously impair it's gaming quality. I don't want that.

"UMD sucks"
No it does not. It's a great way to distribute games, and i have never had a disk crap out on me. As far as i can tell they're quite durable. Load times is a BS argument, it's really easy to fix that (look at how Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce handles that). The new PSP has already addressed the load times problem somewhat by including cache memory. Either way, load times are not the problem. UMD is noisy, yes, but that too goes away if games can be installed to the memory stick.
The biggest bad thing however would be removing UMD from the PSP. That is the single greatest way to alienate every person that has more then a few games in their PSP library. If they remove the drive they should at least make sure that we can still load older games, perhaps by releasing an external drive or any other way to allow me to play the games i payed big money for. In addition, the PSN store blows chunks. The amount of games on there is a joke, and prices are too (eliminating retailers will make games more expensive, another reason for me as a gamer to make sure UMD stays). And then i haven't even mentioned Media Manager for PC. O boy.
UMD should stay. If anything, you don't have to use it when the PSN store gets going, hopefully in the near future.

"piracy"
The writer basically says pirating the PSP is the answer to a host of problems, suggesting that certain features are poorly designed, and fixing this is achieved by cracking the PSP. I have never even tried to crack the PSP and all my games etc. are legal. I don't consider using the PSP and it's games a big hassle, and i don't feel the need to increase battery time by cracking (and potentially bricking) my machine. Still, i understand the point he makes, though i disagree.
I can see that piracy is a problem for Sony but currently it doesn't affect me, as a normal paying customer.
Please note: people that download games without paying are simple idiots and they should receive forced treatment for their illness.

In general, the PSP is the best piece of tech out there for what it needs to do, which is play portable games (and play them wirelessly with friends). Sony needs to focus on the PSP's strong points, not make it some generic jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none gadget (why in my right mind would i go out there with my PSP as a gps unit? Ridiculous).
I think that Sony should simply release more and better games for the PSP and focus on the machine as a gaming platform. Many of my friends have a PSP and none of them see that thing as anything but a gaming platform. Not an iPod replacement, not a portable movie theater, not a web browser. A gaming platform.

Just had a research email about PSP. This means they are planning something, even if its just considering what a new revision should have.

Note it focused on downloading/PSN...

Good article

I have no expectatives about any announcement from console developers in the E3 or in the E3 himself. My 360 and PS3 arre collecting dust while my PC is main main gaming platform plus my universal multimedia device in my living room.

I'm much more insterested in the Starcraft II beta than in the Sony + MS + Nintendo announcements thogheter. The article is decent, but the tematic really doesn't matter.

I enjoyed this article and agree with a number of intelligent comments made here. I own a PSP-2000 and, in all likelyhood, won't be buying the next-gen version. What it comes down to is simply this: I own a cracked portable console, with half dozen great portable games I have bought legally and a library of ROMs available to me, free, over the internet. What more could a new console offer me? In fact, I imagine it fairly likely that the PSP2 won't offer me access to the whole Mega Drive library of games, which I currently have. I own Final Fantasy 7 to 9, all on memory stick. Perhaps if Sony had offered these titles as purchasable downloads I would have bought them, but, once again, pirates have filled a gap in the market, giving at least one consumer what he wants, and faster than the competition.

Like others, I can only hope that Sony will get with it and offer reasonable pricing. But like others, I have severe doubts over this, and considering their behavior in the past, I doubt they will offer a competitive service.

It also amazes me that some suggest that the PSP should become more of a jack-of-all-trades multimedia gadget than it already is. Surely one of the biggest problems the PSP had in the first place was its confused identity? (But maybe that's just an issue of bad marketing.) Apple has a great deal of the all-purpose multimedia device completely sown up. Why try to compete on this level?

+ a right analogue stick.

edit:

Also, I'd like to play the following games on the move stored on the console itself:

Rainbow Islands
Braid
Super Rub-a-dub
Bust-a-move
Chu Chu Rocket

etc.

Make it happen, Sony.

Good article but I think it missed the elephant in the room hinted at in a recent interview Sony's top brass. Namely the Wii-me-do PS2.

I may be wrong of course but I got the impression from reading between the lines that this was a strategy they'd keen to pursue. I can't paste a link because I'm typing this on a PS3. I think the article was on Spong.com (sorry EG).

So anyway, my predictions are the 'PSP Go!' UMD-less, slidy screen, one stick cry for help and a wi-fi enabled, flash ram fatty wireless remote using 'PS2.2' with maybe sixaxis or even waggle-mote support. Maybe they'll even call it the Pii.

I am not on medication and I don't live on Isle of Mann.

Maledictus010 + 1

The PSP is a great bit of kit, don't listen to the Internet. However, I disagree that piracy doesn't affect you as a paying customer. You're paying more, for creatively restricted games, because of piracy.

I sincerely hope that backwards compatibility will be retained with any new PSP model - that's not from an architecture perspective, but from the point of view of not stiffing existing customers, who've loyally supported the PSP and kept it going, by actually investing hard-earned cash into buying one.

By providing a migration path for existing customers, who have invested in UMD games/films, Sony will show that they have listened AND learned from their PS3 mistakes. If they don't, it will be the death of the PSP, in any shape or form. And of course, this will have a direct and devastating effect, on Sony as a whole.

The other point that concerns me about an UMD-less PSP is where on earth will the software be stored?

I mean, how much RAM will the new model have to hold such data? 8GB? 16GB? At the lower end, it won't be enough to hold more than a handful of games (considering that UMD is a 1.8GB storage medium), which means about 4. At the higher end, you're talking about adding more cost to the unit, so will 16GB+ be feasible?!

If Sony uses Memory Sticks as an answer (=excuse), would they really expect customers to purchase memory sticks for every game they purchase, or invest in a high capacity unit, for every few games they purchase?!

I think Sony have a very tough problem: They've produced a fantastic portable but unfortunately, the storage is inadequate, no matter what shape or form it is or will be.

@zedzee

Eh?

"If Sony uses Memory Sticks as an answer (=excuse), would they really expect customers to purchase memory sticks for every game they purchase, or invest in a high capacity unit, for every few games they purchase?"

That's like saying "do Sony expect us to buy CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray's to hold every game I purchase?"

A pocket full of memory sticks is far more portable than a pocket full of UMDs. And stop whining about backwards compatability. I believe Sony can and will come up with a solution to this, which also lets UMD deservedly die the death it should.

Digital distribution where each handheld is tied to some user ID, just like steam and other DD systems, so if you register a game you can keep downloading it after you delete is, is probably what handhelds are leaning towards.

A closed experience which should give ninty and sony greater control (no losing out on second hand sales, something which it appears game devs are really hostile against, hence the limited activation drm and paying to transfer games to other accounts we see on PCs.), and, if implemented properly, should bring the same benefits consoles and PC's have already experienced.

I think its a natural evolution, really, to get rid of physical copies. I used to be i the "I like boxes and manuals" camp but years of steam and impulse has convinced me otherwise and I think it would be great if the same happened on the next psp. Its already happening for the next nds.

Sony will do the most unlikely, convoluted, ridiculous thing possible. That's how they do things these days and to my mind they deserve to be in the shit.

Two jobs to buy a PS3 ?
No backwards comparability on the majority of PS3s ?
One stick on the PSP ?

Just go away Sony, you're not getting my money any time soon.

"a rival it was widely predicted to crush when both devices were announced."

Based on no evidence whatsoever by people that weren't capable of making any grounded predictions in the first place...

Good point.

@bdaggers:

I agree with most of what you say, but I think that the price of a console is kind of irelevent from the gaming perspective: If you want to play the games, then you will buy the hardware, same way you would upgrade an old PC to play Crysis. Value for money is subjective.

When comparing the price of the PS3 to the relative cheapness of the 360, the difference may become an issue for some folks, but it's not like you have to take out a second mortgage to pay for it. It's a games console with a blu-ray player and a flawed and convoluted architecture - it's more expensive than its competitors.

Totally agree with your other points: Sony have indeed developed corporate Alzhiemer's. They lack the sense of direction and clarity of thought which MS and Ninty seem to have in spades. They are disorganised and sometimes seem to want to do things differently for the sake of being different, regardless of how user-friendly it is (or isn't.)

But Microsoft's vision and realisation of the 360 (ignoring RROD) has been exceptional, and the online service implemented - on day one - was fully developed (thanks to lessons learned from the original Live service) and very well thought out.

In contrast, the lack of parity between SCEA, SCEE and SCEJ is incredibly annoying. As is the lack of continuity between Playstation Stores. Also, there were many basic features that were missing upon release of PSP and PS3, that needed patching in or are still missing.

Sony have no one to blame but themselves. Microsoft have more experience in cost-effective design, controlling and distributing software, and they raised the bar for online functionality - Sony should have been taking better notes.

In a way, I think Sony partly redeemed themselves by offering free online play. It's all fucking P2P, so it should be free, like on PC. It's not like MS are continuously rewriting their netcode/redesigning the Live front-end, so why do we have to keep on paying? Yes, Live has decent features, but they have always been present.

I know it's my choice to pay (which I do), but features aside, the actual gaming side of Live and PSN are almost indistinguishable from one another.

/considers getting a blog

Since part of this article is about the PSP not doing so well, something else needs to be said here.
I think that retailers are helping to kill PSP. Retailers here (NL, Europe) only sell the most current titles, and then only the ones that are likely to sell well. So if you like fifa and the sims, you're okay. Everybody else has to get their games somewehere else, because only a few specialist gamestores here have a few good games, and they always charge full price (or more) for them. I have an extensive games library for PC, PS2 and PSP and well over 60% of the games came from the UK or even from the US: the local retailers didn't even know of the titles i requested (even though they were released in PAL territory). The UK seems to do better. I've been to stores in the UK and they have (in general) well over 4 times as many games for PSP as the stores here seem to have (the same thing goes for PS2: even though PS2 outsold PS3 last month in Japan, retailers here have all but discarded the PS2 games, only a few stores still sell them). This coupled with the fact that the PSN store is useless (in terms of the amount of games on offer) and i'm not surprised that PSP doesn't do so well over here. I guess one of the general sentiments on this thread is actually quite true: Sony have themselves to blame for this mess, but i still think that things might have been different if retailers would take gaming a bit more seriously.

If sony wants the PSP 2 to be a success, they need to make it powerful enough to emulate DS games. That would ensure HUGE sales if released in the next 6 months.

That said, the chances of sony (covertly) embracing the benefits of piracy are slim.