PSP To Refocus on Teen Market 98
Wired's Game|Life blog, and writer Chris Kohler, have the news that the PSP will be aiming at teen users in the near future. This from PSP senior product manager John Koller, who connected the recent system price cut to this new initiative. "Going forward, Sony will unveil the 'Dude, Get Your Own' campaign. The idea this year, says Koller, is to 'break out of the home cycle.' A significant amount of PSP users in that 13-17 group play the device at home. 'The teens that are doing this value the ability to utilize the portability,' Koller notes paradoxically. By portability, he clarifies, he means 'I can play it upstairs while my parents are watching the TV downstairs.'"
"Paradox" regarding the "Games You Play" (Score:4, Interesting)
The "paradox" is that people are playing the portable system at home. It's not really a paradox, it just means that the ability to take a portable system elsewhere is not the only good reason to use a portable. I think this is significant (if you accept the idea - and I do) because the PSP is a bit large for a portable system - but also very powerful for a portable. If you look at it as a machine you're gonna take places, it may seem unwieldy - but if you look at it as a machine you'll use at home, it's convenient and the feature set is not too shabby....
Re:Ummm... (Score:3, Interesting)
From their new ads it's underway. (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously Sony can't find a market for this piece of hardware, Sony didn't drop the price retailers DEMANDED sony drop the price because they had given so much store space for it and they weren't even able to make a profit on it. Otherwise you wouldn't see that many PSPs anywhere.
Sony doesn't have the games the fans want, doesn't allow the functionality the fans want, and charges more than the DS. The question Sony needs to ask themselves is the following what part of that sentence means the PSP is a good idea? I stated when the PSP first came out it needed unique games. All I saw then was PS2 ports. Now a couple years later I own one (great MP3 player, homebrew system, and I got it at a steal) but now I ask the same question. Lumines can only go so far. The owners of the system can't even find the unique games because all the get are 100 ports and 1 unique game. There's good games out there, but Sony isn't giving the unique games a shot.
Now reread that last paragraph, change DS to Wii, Ps2 to 360, and Lumines to Resistance. Oh and then change it to the fact I don't own one. It's the same story, the PS3 can't find an audience because it's just a "me too" situation. They don't have any worthy exclusives for at least 6 monthes. Their current games are moderate (Motorstorm and resistance didn't impress much at the game studio I work) Ps3 home can only go so far(especially when unlike the 360, it's only for when your not playing games. On the 360 when you're playing the games you still get voice chat, friends and more while playing your chosen game)
Sony needs a new direction. And sadly it's too late this generation, the die has been cast, they crossed the Rubicon. They didn't provide the fans with what the fans wanted. They didn't provide the developers with what developers wanted. They provided sony with what sony wanted. Anyone telling you they are supporting their developers is a first party studio or getting paid (through assistance or money). A lot of studios were thinking it but Eidos gave it voice last month, and you'll see more and more developers giving secondary support to the ps3 versions of games.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Firstly, the PSP is fighting against decades of nostalgia. Despite the rise and fall in their console market share, Nintendo has been the undisputed champion of hand helds. They've defeated Atari, Sega (who even made a handheld Sega Genesis of all things), and anyone else who happened to try to muscle in. Simply put, if you played a dedicated portable game system in the past 20 years it probably was either Nintendo or one of those crappy $5 battery eaters.
Secondly, Lumines was great. That doesn't sound like it was bad for the PSP, but it was all the PSP really had going for it at first (at least in terms of games). People who bought it for games had to wait a long time for the now oft cited excellent titles to appear on the system. That slump both gave Nintendo the chance to prove the DS had what it took, and took away what had otherwise been excellent momentum from the PSP.
Thirdly, load times. The PSP is, to my knowledge, the first handheld that sports the oft maligned loading bar. I remember this being the most common complaint about the portable a year or two back. It takes the DS all of 2 seconds to boot up, and as few as 5 to get from there to playing the game. The worst I've ever seen was 15 seconds from "flip to frag". However, the PSP reportedly could take in excess of a full minute to load a game.
Fourthly, news. We don't hear much about the PSP in the news outside of how homebrewers have again bypassed the latest firmware update, or how the DS is outselling it 2 to 1. We don't hear about how a game sold incredibly well, only about how everyone loves New Super Mario Bros. or Nintendogs. We learned about the death of UMD, while at the same time learning about how Nintendo was broadening and expanding the market. While the games problem is at this point rectified, there isn't much good news to be heard.
Fifthly, the PS3. While it may not be fair, a number of people have turned against Sony for what they see as an outrageous insult to their intelligence and pride. Should the PS3 be viewed as such? Not really, but for some it is. That also translates into anger against anything Sony, which includes the PSP. Guilty by association I fear.
Lastly, Sony PR. All of the above are conquerable and defeatible obstacles, except Sony's PR is terrible. We might have figured it out back with the borderline racist squirrels, or the ill-conceived graffiti campaign. They might have noticed when their PS3 ads and marketing were similarly ill-received. However, the bottom line is that if Sony had made the Wii or the DS, even with the same line-up of games and Shigeru Miyamoto behind them, Sony's PR would block the pathway to success like a giant, immovable boulder. They more than anything else are in a position to solve the issues the PSP faces because they are mostly issues of image, but they have also proven themselves to be absolutely incopetant at their job. They're even bad at finding other people to do their job for them (again, see the graffiti and that "grass roots" website campaign). In short, Sony's ball and chain is their PR, and until they stop dragging that dead weight behind them they'll never be able to catch Nintendo.
I'd rather like that all to change. It'd be nice if the systems could be weighed purely on their merits and achievements rather than by the stupid things their PR departments do.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as the game sales numbers go, the PSP is having a terrible time. The best selling PSP game in North America is GTA:LCS at just shy of 1.5 million units, which is behind several DS titles. Additionally a lot of anecdotal evidence suggests that a large fraction of the sales are for PSP firmware hacking, which would seem to back up the fact that no other PSP game is even close to cracking 1 million units yet (according to VGCharts). The situation in Japan is even worse due to both hardware and software problems. Overall the DS is selling much better, which puts the PSP at a significant disadvantage. A PSP game just finally broke 1mil units this year, on a chart overrun with DS titles.
On the whole, the PSP has a much lower attach rate(that is, the number of games sold per console sold) compared to the DS, which is a problem for Sony since they have a greater reliance on software in turning a profit. The primary culprit is that people are not using the PSP as a games machine, and instead are doing other things with it, which is why it's selling so well while simultaneously having a much poorer attach rate. I believe Sony is finally making a profit on each unit they sell(or at least were until they dropped the price), but at the end of the day people hacking their PSPs are causing a massive headache for Sony and their partners. When you consider the higher development cost of PSP games(due to the higher bar on graphics), selling fewer units than DS games while simultaneously costing more to make is squeezing publishers hard and sucking the profitability out of the system.
It's not unlike the Xbox 1 really. It's not doing too poorly, but no one's making a profit on it like they are the DS, and that's leading to a lot of these stories. Unfortunately for Sony it's still a young platform, it's going to be a couple more years before it's ready for retirement, and there's not much left they can do to improve their situation until then.
Re:What's wrong? (Score:2, Interesting)
So I never heard of VGCharts before. It's an interesting site. It does list SHIPPING quantities, not actual sales figures - which is an important difference. But anyway... I was curious which DS titles sold more than GTA:LCS. I live in NYC and see plenty of portable gaming systems on the subway. I'd say the PSP outsells the DS by at least a factor of 10 to 1 for subway riders. I almost never see an adult with the thing.
Looking at the VGCarts site, it makes sense. The only DS games to outsell GTA:LCS include stuff like Nintendogs, Mario, Pokemon, Braintraining, and Animal Crossing. Outside of Braintraining, which does sound remotely interesting, would an adult play any of these games?
I don't think so. Isn't it possible the DS is just marketed and oriented towards children while the PSP simply is not? I mean, let's look at all the DS games that have shipped over 1MM units:
Nintendogs Nintendo 1.55 4.96 5.58 12.09
New Super Mario Bros Nintendo 4.54 2.62 2.23 9.39
Brain Training Nintendo 3.52 1.53 2.28 7.33
Animal Crossing: Wild World Nintendo 4.32 1.29 1.69 7.30
Mario Kart DS Nintendo 2.26 2.43 2.01 6.70
Pokemon Diamond / Pearl Nintendo 5.13 0.00 0.00 5.13
Super Mario 64 DS Nintendo 1.12 2.14 1.39 4.65
Brain Training 2 Nintendo 4.48 0.00 0.00 4.48
Big Brain Academy Nintendo 1.46 0.99 0.81 3.26
Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team Nintendo 0.82 1.15 0.97 2.94
English Training for Adults Nintendo 1.94 0.25 0.29 2.48
Warioware: Touched Nintendo 1.20 0.50 0.45 2.15
Tetris DS Nintendo 1.22 0.43 0.28 1.93
Yoshi Island 2 Nintendo 0.49 0.81 0.37 1.67
Sonic Rush Sega 0.06 0.49 0.96 1.51
Final Fantasy III Square 1.04 0.47 0.00 1.51
Common Knowledge Training Nintendo 1.46 0.00 0.00 1.46
Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time Nintendo 0.48 0.70 0.27 1.45
Pokemon Ranger Nintendo 0.77 0.67 0.00 1.44
Kirby Squeak Squad Nintendo 1.00 0.37 0.00 1.37
Tamogotchi Connection: Corner Shop Bandai 1.13 0.12 0.10 1.35
Dragon Quest Monsters Joker Enix 1.33 0.00 0.00 1.33
Mario Hoops 3 on 3 Nintendo 0.51 0.62 0.16 1.29
Clubhouse Games Nintendo 0.71 0.19 0.14 1.04
Love and Berry DS Collection Sega 1.01 0.00 0.00 1.01
I dunno. It just seems like most of these games are not oriented towards my age group. Tons of cutsie games. Final Fantasy III excluded of course. 90% of them are Nintendo games. Who knows what kind of draconian sales agreements they have with vendors. These shipments could have been FORCED.
If we assume these numbers are accurate, I think we can only assume that what people say about Nintendo is true: The company markets their products to children. That's fine, but I just don't quite understand why it inspires such fanatical loyalty amongst Slashdot readers.
Anyway, I digress... I guess it doesn't matter that the same list has about 5 times as many PC games having sold over 1 million units than the PSP. That sounds great until you realize the list includes ancient titles like Doom, Sim City 2000, Theme Park, Myst, and The 7th Guest. The PSP list is modest, but it really isn't so bad when compared to the PC list.
I think when you consider the numbers in context, the DS probably is doing really well, but the PSP is hardly a failure and has done as well or better than the PC game market.