Slashdot Mirror
PSP Usage Lower Than Expected
Next Generation has an article analyzing the numbers of a recent PSP usage survey. Despite a showing that there is strong brand loyalty, the numbers are probably not what Sony was hoping for. From the article: "Most said they had no plans to buy any UMD movies. Less than 50% said they would use the PSP to watch video or view pictures using a memory stick. The figure drops to less than 30% among female users. Sony will be concerned that 50% of users admitted they had not touched their PSP in 'some time'. 25% of male users have updated their PSP for Internet use, with only 10% of female users doing same."
They definitely should of waiting until a larger game library would be available before the launch. I think this is clearly a case of Sony not wanting Nintendo to have an even greater amount of lead time than it had.
I think Nintendo might win the war on this round of handhelds (yet again). Their games are more fun so far, and with the launch of Nintendogs (which appears annoying to me at first, but it was kinda fun after 5 minutes), it will attract a MUCH larger casual and female gaming audience than the PSP. Thats where i think Sony will lose the war on PSP, they might get more on the hardcore gaming market, but casual and female gamers will make a big difference.
Not to mention the DS is still about half the price of the PSP...
You can fool some of the people all of the time
Most said they had no plans to buy any UMD movies.
Hint: Charge a lot less for them! Hell, sell them for $2 when you buy the full DVD as well.. They don't have the same utility as a DVD, so you can't charge the same price.
ony will be concerned that 50% of users admitted they had not touched their PSP in 'some time'.
Hint: Come out with some new games! We've all played the launch titles. While you're at it, put a $35 price cap on them. Handheld games aren't worth more than that.
25% of male users have updated their PSP for Internet use, with only 10% of female users doing same
Hint: Don't disable functionality with your updates if you want your users to apply them.
Hint 2: Don't ship your product before it's finished. Most people are too lazy to upgrade.
I love my PSP, but Sony needs to pull their heads out of their asses.
"Sony will be concerned that 50% of users admitted they had not touched their PSP in 'some time'."
That's me. Mine has been sitting in a drawer since I flew to vegas 2 months ago. I really only use mine for UMD movies though, the screen is amazing. Speakers are far to quiet to use on a plane though. I own 5 movies, 1 game and a bigger memory stick that I put cartoon files and music on.
There's two ways to advance a format: either make it more accessable, or make it more convenient. I don't think Sony is going to open the Pandora's box that is compatible UMD-Rs, when (in their opinion) that's the purpose of the Memory stick.
Instead, what they should do is make the UMD easier to use and give it more features. Make it too damn hard to resist. If they were really serious about making the PSP+UMD a viable mainstream entertainment format, then they should be like the iPod and make it useable in as many conceiveable ways as possible within the item's designed philosophy.
It's a game system and a movie player. Allowing the user to output video (it's primary function is turning bits into pixels) to a TV doesn't compete with the basic philosophy of the design, just like outputting the audio from my iPod to my stereo doesn't take away from it's basic purpose as a music player (turning bits into audio signals).
Is it cool to run Linux on the iPod? Sure. But I'd rather it play music in as many ways as possible, before I worry about running Apache on it. Letting the PSP output to a TV would have made it that much harder to resist -- it adds value and usefulness that has no competitor right now.
Remember, Nintendo has a long tradition of creating add-ons for it's consoles that allow their portable library to be played on the TV. When the Revolution happens, I wouldn't be surprised if a DS adapter isn't announced long after.
What the parent means is that the people at Sony don't want you to be able to copy your DVDs to, say, a Memory Stick and watch them on your PSP. They want you to buy the same movie again on UMD disk.
I find it extremely ironic that the result of this proprietary format, is that it is actually easier to download movies from a pirated site and put them on the PSP memory stick than it is to copy them over from your own DVD. Considering how widespread piracy is, I'm willing to be this will result in increased video/movie piracy among PSP users...