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Why the Sony PSP Had To "Go"
We recently discussed the release of the PSP Go, which drew criticism for many design choices that were of dubious value to consumers. Now, Phaethon360 sends in a story about why Sony felt the need to improve upon the old PSP. "As a format, the UMD was holding the entire platform back. Few people (if anyone) bought into the UMD movie hype Sony attempted to thrust back in 2005. Very soon after that, people realized they could rip their DVDs to a memory stick with the same quality. It's ironic how, as the price of Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo dropped and size increased, PSP UMD sales decreased along with it. It doesn't take too many Howard Stringers to figure out what the problem was." Indeed, Sony was complaining of rampant PSP piracy for quite some time. They cited "legal and technical issues" for not supporting the transfer of UMD games onto the PSP Go; undoubtedly they couldn't find a way to keep pirated games from being copied.
No, it's not.
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Sony can only blame itself for the failure of UMD movies. When the PSP first came out I was looking forward to having portable movies, but they cost significantly more than DVD's even though they were lower quality and could only be viewed on one device (the PSP 1000 had no video out), it was no wonder they didn't sell.
Presumably, unless each UMD has a unique serial number, and the hypothetical UMD-to-PSP Go converter phones it home, there would be no way for Sony to keep a given UMD disk from being turned into N copies, all blessed by Sony.
And, even if there are unique serial numbers, and they could make that work, any official mechanism that produces blessed copies of legacy applications would presumably be a logical target for attackers.
And/or because Sony's secret bylaws compel them to treat their customers with precisely equal amounts of hatred and contempt at all times.
Presumably, unless each UMD has a unique serial number, and the hypothetical UMD-to-PSP Go converter phones it home, there would be no way for Sony to keep a given UMD disk from being turned into N copies, all blessed by Sony.
What about accepting reality that pirates already enjoy the premium service - and providing legit customers with the something similar??
Or Sony felt compelled to feed the pirates with new and more justifications to do what they did before?
And/or because Sony's secret bylaws compel them to treat their customers with precisely equal amounts of hatred and contempt at all times.
That's more like it.
Sony and Nintendo are quite similar that they pretty much always dismiss their own customers. That's why people are so divided: they either love it or hate it. It feels like their R&Ds live and work in some sort of isolated underground lab where novelties like internet and forums are not available. And all of customer feedback is substituted with directives and memos from upper management. Well, at least Nintendo has the luminary Miyamoto (who is already "upper management") and his games have some loyal fans.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Minidiscs are still extremely popular here in Japan. I don't really understand why, but virtually everybody I know has a minidisc system. I sometimes think Sony lives in a Japan-centric bubble. They make decisions based on what they can get away with in Japan (quite a lot) and figure it will work for the rest of the world. It really doesn't. Slowly, though, I see things changing. The high school students I teach here are moving away from Sony as far as I can tell. I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years Sony collapses based on their inability to see reality.
Nonsense.
Piracy is rampant and easy on the PSP at present, but not everyone does it.
I use hacked firmware on my PSP, sure, because I rip my games to MemStick. I hate having to carry the UMDs around, loading times improve and the battery life is better. I also have a genesis emulator on their and some ROMS of games I used to own as a kid. That may or may not be considered piracy I guess.
But I still pay for games and will continue to do so. I will also crack the Go if I ever get one because you can bet your ass that there won't be a mechanism to resell games you've bought, plus I would feel the moral right to transfer my current UMD based games.
Many people (including you apparently) don't get the fact that the PSPGo is not meant to be a replacement for the PSP-3000. The UMD-friendly PSP will still be available after the PSPGo's launch, so the comparison with the PS3 is not really relevant
Actually Sony are quite permissive when it comes to user control of downloaded content. You can install content you've purchased on up to five PS3's and every user account, whether on PSN or not, can use any content downloaded by another account on the same PS3.
It's pretty sad when the indoctrination has reached even /. and we think that it's "quite permissive" for a company to allow you to use the content you purchased on devices that you own. How nice of them to be that "permissive".
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
P.S.
The PSP Go reminds me of another frak-up by an earlier company called Commodore. They had the extremely-popular Amiga 500, then released a 600 that was supposed to be an upgrade, but was actually less functional (no keypad, not backwards-compatible with old games, and not expandable). According to their chief engineer Dave Haynie, the A600 "was supposed to be $50-$60 cheaper than the A500, but it came in at about that much more expensive than the A500." The Managing Director of Commodore UK, David Pleasance, described the A600 as a "complete and utter screw-up."
I suspect ten years from now we'll see Sony engineers saying the PSP GO started as a good idea, but due to poor management and bad decisions, became a complete and utter screw-up, and about $100 more expensive than it was meant to be.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall