Slashdot Mirror
Sony Winding Down the PSP
Linnen writes "Sony has started the process of phasing out its PSP handheld console. From The Guardian: 'Shipments to the U.S. ended this year, and they are closing in Japan soon. European stores will see their last arrivals toward Christmas. Launched in Japan in December 2004, it is almost 10 years old – not a bad achievement for a handheld that was almost written off early in its lifespan. ... The console struggled with high piracy levels of its titles, which meant the likes of EA, Activision and Ubisoft were reticent about committing to major development projects. However, the ease with which hackers were able to break the device's security system also meant that it became a favorite with the homebrew development scene, and amateur coders are still producing games and demos for the platform. Some look back on the machine as a failure beside the all-conquering Nintendo DS, but this is unfair. The console sold 80m units, a figure boosted by a series of excellent hardware and featureset updates, including the slimmer PSP-2000 and PSP-3000 models. '"
Given that anybody who pirated the content likely wouldn't have paid for it even if they'd not pirated it, this is just an excuse from the likes of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft. (And when was the last time any of the above put out a game that wasn't another tepid dishwater remake or derivative copy of somebody else's game anyway?)
Owning both (I had the PSP long before I ever got a smartphone), I have to say there's no contest. One has a form factor and physical controls conducive to gaming, the other doesn't. (Or at least, not to most games, just to Angry Birds / Candy Crush-type games.)
Yes and no. While there was piracy on PSP, there was also piracy on DS, and lots of it. At the end of the day, DS was a bigger market and studios wanted to sell to the machine with the bigger install base - it helps, especially when piracy rates are high.
Ubisoft treats all of their customers like pirates, and complains about piracy rates on every medium. They've claimed multiple times that their games have a 99% piracy rate and that's why they need people to download UPlay (their proprietary PC client) and install always-online DRM, even for games that they sell on existing DRM platforms like Steam. Hell, they're still doing the "limited installs with no revocations" DRM scheme on a lot of their games. For instance, let's look at Anno 2070. Let's say, in theory, that I'm at work one day and Anno 2070 goes on sale, and I buy it from my tablet to play when I get home. Just to get the game working, I would have to:
- Start up Steam
- Wait for Steam to log in
- Download the game
- Install SecuROM (still comes with Anno 2070 and has I think 5 installs with no revocations)
- Start UPlay
- Wait for UPlay to log in
- Enter my product code from Steam into UPlay to register it there
- Wait for UPlay to unlock the game on its side
- Wait for UPlay to apply patches since they do it through UPlay and not through Steam
- Play the game
In case you're not keeping track, that's three different levels of DRM - Steam, Ubisoft's always-online DRM, and SecuROM, two of which require logins with separate accounts, to play a single game. Ubisoft hated the PSP (and DS) because they couldn't force DRM onto it. Same goes for Activision and EA. It's not like any of these companies have made a single good game in years anyway.
I'm not a fan of mobile games. They typically have shallow gameplay, no story, no immersion, and 9/10 times they're based on the "freemium" model which sucks. They're designed to be time-wasters. So yeah, "real" handheld gaming systems blow them out of the water. But, sadly, for most people, these mobile games are good enough.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
My thoughts exactly. Piracy is extremely easy on the DS. It's so easy you basically just need to know how to purchase a special cartridge and copy files to a micro sd card.
The DS' success can be attributed to their unique IP, the low price, or the high build quality, but personally I think all these features break down to one thing: kids. DS was/is the platform for kids aged 4-14. You'd be hard pressed to find a kid in this age bracket that doesn't own one. The device is cheap, the games are cheap, you can beat the shit out of the thing and it wont break. It has novelty features like a 3D screen, a wide variety of exclusive titles that directly appeal to kids, and easy to configure parental controls. It's the dream platform for kids... and for parents to buy for their kids. You know... so their not bothering you asking you questions or breaking your things.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Leave the touch screen computer people to their delusions. Did you know they are completely replacing workstations and laptops any day now?
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The DS and its redesigns (DSlite and DSi) sold over 270 million units in 7 years before being succeeded by the 3DS, while the PSP and its redesigns sold 80 million in 10 years.
No contest there, EA and the like didn't want to waste their time on a relatively tiny userbase.
Piracy is just a handy scapegoat for both lawmakers and sony. Mainly they just didn't want to piss sony off by making it public they think the PSP is a failure not worth developing for.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Given that anybody who pirated the content likely wouldn't have paid for it even if they'd not pirated it
While that is a standard "piracy has no effect on sales" arguement I don't buy it. While that may be true for some pirates who simply get off having one of every released software title or very expensive products, for many products I bet the allure of free vs. buy is too strong take away free and some probably not insignificant percentage would buy.
this is just an excuse from the likes of EA, Activision, and Ubisoft. (And when was the last time any of the above put out a game that wasn't another tepid dishwater remake or derivative copy of somebody else's game anyway?)
The quality of the product aside it's pretty clear that high rates of piracy relative to sales results in less development and products.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It kind of annoys me that the Vita TV never reached north America. The Vita games I'm interested in don't actually need touch controls and in Japan its like half the price of the Vita itself.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Thank you for reminding me to make sure I am not purchasing Ubisoft games when I browse the Steam store. Steam is good enough DRM, putting stuff on top of it just wastes everyone's time.
Pretty fair assessment. We never owned any PSPs, but in our household of three (me, my wife, and our son), we have owned 8 DS products (including our current 3DSes). A couple of of the original DSLs developed bad hinges, but that isn't a big surprise given that they were constantly being opened and closed for 5 years before being replaced with 3DSes.
A great many of us would have paid for the CD or DVD if we had no other choice, so yes, piracy is a lost sale.
Well, no, piracy is not necessarily a lost sale. "A geat many of us would have paid" is not the same as "every one of us would have paid."
Claiming that piracy doesn't hurt sales is a lie, but claiming that every pirated copy is a lost sale is also a lie.
While userbase may be the number one reason to not develop for the PSP, it's likely the ease of piracy was another major concern. Cause lets fact it, free beats paid any day. Doesn't help that piracy was in many ways a superior option since it let you carry multiple games in 1 card and saved battery life by not utilizing the umd drive.
The disk-drive PSPs are the best of both worlds, anyhow. Capable of downloading games? Yes. Capable of playing disks? Yes. Capable of ripping those disks to images so that you don't have to carry around a stack of 15 games? Double-yes!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Subsequent PSP models were not easily hacked (and I believe the later models remain unhacked today).
I don't know about the E1000 (a PAL-region barebones PSP), but the PSP-3000 and (I think) the PSP Go are both hackable without actually flashing new firmware. Some of the software signing keys were discovered about 3 years ago. You can sign custom binaries and use those to open the floodgates to whatever else you want.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Truly. It is awesome. There are only a few small problems with it.
1) UMD disk is proprietary shit. Had they instead used a mini-dvd, the handheld would have been fantastic. But I realize that this is sony, and that they have delusions of owning the media market, despite having CLEARLY lost on all fronts. No Sony, your memory stick tech will NEVER be more user friendly than SDcard. No Sony, your UMD was never going to surpass mini-DVD. No Sony, your MagicGate bullshit for the vita will never catch on. Sorry. Users have the choice of non-sony things that work with all other non-sony things--- which are just as good if not better, than what you offer-- and are perfectly content to let your bullshit die on the vine. Like Vita is.
You SHOULD have used mini-DVD.
You SHOULD have used Micro-SD.
2) Sony dropped the ball bigtime on game selection for the PSP, and further shot themselves in the foot by failing to give proper dualshock type thumbknobs-- Even the (very excellent!) PSONE emulator (which works with basically every PSONE game, with some tweaking!) is rendered less than fully useful because of the lack of the other thumb knob. I bought my PSP fat explicitly to run CFW on it, so that I could play emulated SNES and NES games on it, and to run homebrew apps on it. (It works just fine as a small ebook reader, and as an email reader. Used it for quite some time before I bought a smartphone. Could check my emails anywhere there was open wifi!)
The reason why this was the SINGLE, ONE AND ONLY reason for that purchase decision? THERE WERE NO GAMES RELEASED FOR THE PSP WORTH BUYING, OR EVEN PLAYING. I have had my hacked PSP for.. Jeeze--- YEARS now. STILL, NOT A SINGLE PSP TITLE ON IT. PIRATED OR OTHERWISE. My choice not to buy games, was because there were no games worth having!
BUT-- Again-- the handheld itself is fantastic!
The screen is behind a very robust and thick slab of plastic that keeps it from getting screwed up. The FAT has an out of this world battery life. I could play an emulated snes game for literally 8 hours straight on a single charge! FANTASTIC! I STILL take the hacked PSP on vacation!
Where Sony screwed up?
Again, where they always screw up, and where they have always historically screwed up, and where they will consistently and forever screw up, until the day they collapse from the inside:
1) They were and still are delusional. They want to believe that we will buy something just for the Sony name. We wont. This carries over on anything tied exclusively to Sony products-- be it MagicGate or MemoryStick memory cards, proprietary spinning disc formats, audio CDs with extra special rootkits--- whatever. Does not matter. If it only works in SonyWorld, while everyone else plays in REALWORLD, SonyWorld will always get the attendence that EuroDisney gets-- which is to say, it isn't really in your best interests to try it, sony. If you want us to invest in something, you have to MAKE it WORTH our while. You have to present something tangibly better than what everyone else offers; It MUST be bigger, better, faster, and be all that and a bag of chips; Complacency will NOT work. This should be immensely apparent to even you guys by now. That means if you offer a console to compete with another quality product released by a competitor, YOU NEED TO OUTSHINE THEM IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY. Do any less? You will lose. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. That means having bigger selection, better loading times, better quality gameplay, and all that ball of wax. Giving us a porche that runs on refined plutonium, when there is no real way to get that plutonium, is a good way to waste money engineering a very sexy looking product that nobody will buy. That's where you fucked up with the Vita. Sure, it looks sexy, and probably is a very well designed handheld. BUT YOU DONT HAVE A BIG GAME CATALOG FOR IT. Why spend money on a porche that runs on plutonium, when you can never get the plutonium? Why spend money on a porche that runs on plutonium when you have to deal with deadly ionizi