Slashdot Mirror
EA Pushes Sony on PSP, Price Cuts Possible
GameDaily reports that EA has been pushing Sony to be more proactive with the PSP. The software giant feels that Sony is 'letting the DS win' by failing to adopt an aggressive strategy for the handheld console. The article mentions a piece run on CNN's Game Over column, where Chris Morris talks about the possibility of a price cut by the end of the year. From the EA article: "'There is a price cut coming in the second half of the year,' said P.J.McNealy of American Technology Research. '[The PSP] has lost momentum. Nintendo has had a great run since it launched the DS Lite and Sony needs to regain some ground.' In the meantime, though, EA has been thoroughly encouraged by the DS and DS Lite and conversely discouraged by the PSP, to the point where the publisher is apparently reconsidering its strategy in the portable market."
The PSP, while expensive, was absolutely an incredible system. Too bad Sony didn't care to use it.
Games? Most games suffer from the "portable" curse of generally being very bad products, but that's the developers' fault. A poor analog "nub" aside, this can partly be blamed on third parties, but Sony certainly didn't take any initiative here.
Video? UMD movies failed, of course. But for our own videos we have to deal with low-resolution files that can't be produced by a standard encoder because it uses non-standard headers, and then there's the weird naming scheme that's required. And there's no purpose behind these aggravations except to prevent consumers from using the system's abilities to its fullest extent. Aggravating your customers and preventing them from using your product doesn't win you any fans.
Music? It sounds very nice, but the interface is no better than the cheapest of MP3 players. It doesn't manage your music, but it doesn't allow directories deeper than one level, so you can't organize your music, either. A decent music player interface is *not hard*. They just didn't care.
Network features? How long did it take for a decent web browser? RSS feeds? RSS feeds *that allow you to save anything*? Having these is GREAT, but the fact that it took so long to get them shows us the issues Sony has. But how many games actually have decent online play? 90% of games that only support local play should be able to be played online.
Sony made some great hardware crippled by idiotic management. I feel insulted as a customer. Some where in Sony, there is some one with a lot of vision whose great leaps are constantly struck down by some moron. Find the moron and fire him, and Sony will be OK.
The same thing happened with the PS2. Great hardware crippled by a few moronic decisions (the almost-but-not-quite enough video memory and the absolute failure to make use of network or multimedia features spring to mind). Why should I believe the PS3 will be any different?
Sony needs to take a page from what Microsoft did today and open the PSP up to the indie and homebrew community with some good development tools at no cost or low cost. Years ago, Sony did something similar with the Yaroze program, though that was fairly limited. But right now the PSP is really hurting for games and attention in general. They have little to lose by embracing homebrewers rather than continuing the arms race to prevent homebrew software on the console. The PSP's been left for dead by the DS, so they really don't have anything to lose. If they can smoke out a few killer titles from out of nowhere plus the goodwill and publicity, it will be more than worth the trouble of some people playing pirated games on the PSP, which would happen anyway.
A price cut is always nice for the consumer, but the PSP really needs some great games. And a super easy and free direct from Sony way of getting TV shows and movies on the PSP would be great too. The iPod is kicking their butt in that department right now.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
How much you want to bet all of those factors to limit how you manage the media comes from the head of Sony-BMG and Sony-Colombia/Sony Pictures?
Get rid of those two "divisions" and then, and only then, you've gotten rid of the idiots that limit the full potential of great hardware.
[VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!] [VODAK - Apply Directly to the Mouth!]
That description sounds like MicroSoft, and yet people still buy their products also.
There are reasons for that. There are too many clueless people on earth that don't know there are alternatives to MS, and of the "clueless" that do know, they don't care because everyone *else* they interact with doesn't use the alternatives anyway.
There is also the problem that people perceive (rightly or not) the alternatives as being less feature filled, less supported, more bug-ridden (is that possible?!), slower, etc...
The electronics industry differs GREATLY from MS vs. Non MS software.
Onkyo, Pioneer, Sony, Awia, Denon, and a slew of "generic" or "house" brands all make products (for this example, lets choose a receiver) that do exactly the same things. They all receive AM/FM radio stations, have multiple inputs for different devices, and hook up to two or more speakers.
The same could be said for TV's, VCR's, and DVD players.
The game console market cannot say the same as the parts are not compatible with the competition.
bork bork bork!
I'm not sure what to tell you - this is subjective, but I remember reading numerous criticisms of the iPod's price, and the fact that it was entering an 'already-crowded' market. Not just here on Slashdot, where that sentiment was nearly universal (go look at the thread), but elsewhere in the mainstream tech press.
And yes, consumers are clueless. By any self-respecting nerd measure, almost utterly so. That's not meant to be elitism; its just that most consumers don't know what a rootkit is, for example. Heck, most of the people I talk to with iPods don't even know there's DRM built into the things.
Yes, but my context was the iPod launch, not the subsequent long line of successor products. Originally it was quite expensive - I don't recall exactly if it was $600, but I know it was at least $500. And Mac-only.
It remains to be seen whether this would be a good idea or not. We'll see how the Xbox 360 does with that strategy later this year. Personally I think bifurcating the platform is a terrible idea; it runs counter one of the main points of a game 'console'. A better argument is to say they should have ditched Blu-ray altogether.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Also you state the PSP has more games, but that doesn't paint the whole picture. The PSP currently has only 3 titles that sold over 1 million copies worldwide and the DS has 13. One of which (English Training) isn't even a game, so it wouldn't show up on Metacritic.
The PSP had UMD movies that were lower resolution copies of Movies that were not playable on anything else; cost more then a DVD of the same movie, and usually had fewer extras due to lower disk capacity. The DS has a wider variety of games, and other Software that appeal to broader demographics.
Originality plays a part in the fun factor as well.
Think about how many PSP games have a counterpart on the PS2 with no appreciable difference.
Now look at the DS games, almost every game on the DS makes use of wireless or the touch screen.
This makes them very different games than their analogue on the Gamecube or other consoles.
The PSP is the portable PS2.
The DS is unique. The DS lived up to the hype!
Sony's being caught by the hypocrisy of gamers, for years we've said
"We don't like our portable games cut down, with worse graphics, fewer levels and crappy sound, we want a handheld that can come close to our home machines.
So, Sony makes such a handheld, then gamers say,
"We don't want to play the same games we play at home, we want to play 2D sidescrollers. and puzzle games"