Not just that. When GOW:COO came out and got good numbers, the REady at Dawn folks said (paraphrasing): 'guess what? Good games sell'.
Sony plans PSP comeback in America
- Thread starter patsu
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Not just that. When GOW:COO came out and got good numbers, the REady at Dawn folks said (paraphrasing): 'guess what? Good games sell'.
Yes but there are few good selling games. How many million sellers does the psp have now and 5m sellers. How does that fit with the competition. If you were a developer based on software sales which platform would you target and why ?
I agree on all your software points . however I really think that the media functions were an after thought and the fact that its sony with its own memory stick format is a problem. 8 gigs cost $90-$100 bucks . I can get 2 16 gig sd cards for that price. Which is honestly a shame. It inflates the price of the psp.
You should be able to find PSP million sellers on the usual sales tracking sites (VGChart, NPD). I just checked but am not sure how accurate the number is. So I won't quote it here. It's proportionally fewer than DS (half the hardware, so half the million sellers). Doesn't sound too bad to me.
So far, PSP seems like a late boomer. Hardware has finally increased and sustained for a few months, new games are planned (e.g., FinalFantasy, Parasite Eve, Resistance). I would be keen to see what else is there.
Hopefully, we get better media services too. The new video store is a start, but I would like a "One Click" way to sync media from PS3 or PC to my PSP.
Knowing Kutaragi, I don't think the media service is an afterthought at all. Traditionally, Sony is not known for software usability. The company lacks time, resources, vision and leadership in this area. They usually go for ease of implementation. The best we have seen so far is XMB, which is a reasonable attempt but not "insanely great" yet.
Playstation Home represents the first potential departure from this curse. Hopefully they spend as much time working on a delightful, end-to-end user experience, as opposed to a beautiful 3D tedium. Personally, I am VERY happy when I heard about a 2D PS Home. That tells me they are willing to pull back on visuals to achieve a fast response time. It is a step in the right direction.
For 8Gb memory stick pro duo, you can buy one for about $60 on Amazon. 16Gb SD cost about $48 on the same site. So far 4Gb works great for me. I don't see the need for larger storage yet.
Seems your right. However your still getting double the capacity for less money . However the 16 gig is still $150 which is almost triple the cost of sd cards . You can find a class 4 32GB sd card for about $130 .
Yes, memory stick costs twice as much as SD. Then again, before PSP was launched, some people thought it would cost US$500 
(http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/09/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm)
In 2004, people considered PSP a steal at launch. The memory stick cost was well worth it. If you need a lot of portable media space, clearly PSP's media function is inadequate for you. For many others who don't mind owning the smaller iPods, PSP is still a viable option.
It's a different world today thanks to even more aggressive competition. If consumers find PSP's price unreasonable, supply and demand will kick in. Sony will adjust the price accordingly.
My view remains unchanged: Focus on software integration and innovation for PSP. Revise the hardware when they have something amazing.
(http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/09/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm)In 2004, people considered PSP a steal at launch. The memory stick cost was well worth it. If you need a lot of portable media space, clearly PSP's media function is inadequate for you. For many others who don't mind owning the smaller iPods, PSP is still a viable option.
It's a different world today thanks to even more aggressive competition. If consumers find PSP's price unreasonable, supply and demand will kick in. Sony will adjust the price accordingly.
My view remains unchanged: Focus on software integration and innovation for PSP. Revise the hardware when they have something amazing.
which smaller ipods .
The 8gig ipod nano is $200. Which $30 less than the psp with a 8 gig memory card. The psp alone is $170 which is more than the 4 gig nano. An 80 gig ipod classic is only $250 which is $20 more than the psp. Zunes are even cheaper at 130/170 for the 4/8 gig ones. Aside from that I don't think someone that is interested in a nano or the flash based zunes will even look twice at the psp. The size diffrence is massive. Just like someone looking at an ipod shuffle wont look at a classic ipod.
The 8gig ipod nano is $200. Which $30 less than the psp with a 8 gig memory card. The psp alone is $170 which is more than the 4 gig nano. An 80 gig ipod classic is only $250 which is $20 more than the psp. Zunes are even cheaper at 130/170 for the 4/8 gig ones. Aside from that I don't think someone that is interested in a nano or the flash based zunes will even look twice at the psp. The size diffrence is massive. Just like someone looking at an ipod shuffle wont look at a classic ipod.
Anything 8 Gig or less looks reasonable since PSP can do more. The Nano's selling point is portability, so they are well differentiated from PSP too. Basically, if your portable library can fit, and you like gaming, it's a go.
Zune seems to have an even harder time selling against an iPod.
I'm of the same opinion as you. PSP could be so much better by sony just providing better software integration to playstation store/ps3/pc. Emphasize the sharing from network more than now. Market the product heavily and keep on bringing innovative games(locoroco, patapon, etc.) It's pretty cool that I can already easily stream my music, videos etc. from ps3 to psp. Make it even better and MARKET it so people know about these fantastic features.
There are 6 billion or more people in the world, plenty of room for psp even if it never will sell the same insane amounts as DS will. Being second isn't same as being loss and totally sh*t. PSP seems to be pretty healthy business and a really good first try in handheld market.
I wonder what lower price would do to psp sales, i.e. sell with 99e/99$. I think psp is still around 150e in europe which is pretty expensive for a handheld.
As for power usage the psp hardware can be shrunk and optimized without actually bringing any new features. Also the psp-2000 contains extra 32MB memory that is used in games as cache for UMD so that UMD doesn't spin as much, consume power as much and it actually even makes loadtimes better.
edit. Local internet store seems to sell psp with 189e... Really expensive for casual people who don't know about all the cool features in that gadget.
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That price seems a little high.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=sony+memory+stick&x=0&y=0
There is no question that Sony charges more for their Sticks, that is a way of making a side profit.
Hmm $62 maybe i should get a new one for the PSP. Would be able to put more "car trawel" cartoons on it for the kid
Nick Laslett
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upnorthsox
Veteran
An external UMD drive could certainly be a way around the BC issue with a smaller version, however I wouldn't want builtin flash.
Apple is reportedly building 800 000 iPhones per week at the moment. link
Whether that is sustainable or not remains to be seen, but this is after the launch rush, when they sold over one million the first 72 hours.
It has relevance not only as a sales point of reference, but also as a direct competitor - Super Monkey Ball saw over 300 000 sales in the first 20 days. What that number will be, say, after Christmas with the number of iPhones in use skyrocketing is anybodys guess. But it is clear that the iPhone is a very viable platform to publish games for.
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I think that's still to be seen. I mean, cellphones in general are viable platforms for game development, that's clear enough. But I wonder how higher-budget games primarily developed for the iPhone will fare.
That 2004 iPod vs. launch PSP, is the reliability of the latter owing to design/manufacturing differences or the inherent reliability advantage of flash over HDD?
As for iPhone, they're announcing 60 million downloads in the month since the launch of the App. store.
But for traditional games developers, do $10 games make economic sense? Actually, there's competition with a number of free games too.
No manufacturing costs but the iPhone would have to really ramp up in volume. Guess it could help if Apple converts their entire iPod line to the same OS/runtime as the iPhone.
As for iPhone, they're announcing 60 million downloads in the month since the launch of the App. store.
But for traditional games developers, do $10 games make economic sense? Actually, there's competition with a number of free games too.
No manufacturing costs but the iPhone would have to really ramp up in volume. Guess it could help if Apple converts their entire iPod line to the same OS/runtime as the iPhone.
Lets also not forget the new HTC diamond and raphael. HTC is planing on 2m of those by the end of the year and they only launched it in July. This is a wimo phone. If ms got serious with windows mobile 7 and made it geared for simple gaming and also did the same with the zune you'd get more competition. MS already has the service built with xbox live which points go through the zune store. You can actually buy your zune points in a number of options that aren't avalible through xbox live and buy your games that way. If they make it aware across all three platforms forget about it , you will have alot of live users jump onto a wimo 7 or zune device .Esp since MS has rare that could simply pump out small games for the system like viva pinata that will be on the ds. Handhelds are going to get squeezed from all sides soon.
I don't think people will jump onto Zune just like that. We will have to wait for MS to show its cards.
Yeah, too early to tell. Sega's new "Phantasy Star Portable" PSP game sold 500K in Japan last week, at full price. We need to see how the iPhone people juggle with the battery issues.
Yeah, too early to tell. Sega's new "Phantasy Star Portable" PSP game sold 500K in Japan last week, at full price. We need to see how the iPhone people juggle with the battery issues.
For most people, cellphones have more critical battery life need though. Essentially, the user has to balance between the phone usage, the media player usage and gaming usage. He/she can't really turn off the cellphone network connection too. On a dedicated player, the owner can turn off the network connection to conserve battery.
My phone has about a 90 hour stand by time and 8 hours talk time. I don't know what the iphone is. However there is no way anyone can talk 8 hours a day on their cell phone. I also doubt anyone will play 8 hours either. So it really depends on the life of the phone, but anyone who is going to use a phone for email , talking , texting and other things you should already have another charger than just at home. For instance I use my phone constantly and I have 3 chargers , 1 at work , one in the car and one at home. For my psp I have 2 , one in the car and one at home. But for my phone I normaly have it in a dock while I'm not using it. Some people I guess may be on the go more and might not be able to charge it.
Of course for alot of older people its easier to carry just a phone that happens to play games and music and suffs the web than it is to carry a phone + a game device + a web surfing device .
