Ok, so the PSP is dead as far as I can see, at least financially.
UMDs are being cancelled at sold at less than half price, and still no one is buying them.
Games-wise the damage is already done, no one trusts the PSP to provide anything genuinely new or exciting. The design is too conservative, it really is just a PlayStation, with little done to help makes the games 'portable'.
So... what do Sony do next?
a) Release a shameless touch screen PSP 1.5 with a terrible add on for existing PSPs, or just screw over existing owners completely.
b) Release a PSP 2 that doesn't look a lot different to PSP 1, perhaps two years down the line, and continue to bleed cash.
c) innovate!
d) nuclear war.
I guess the question is, could they really manage c), and what would they actually do...
a) is kind of interesting, they must be weighing that up. It would be too obvious though, and if anything like that happened, Nintendo would have already found all of the good ideas on the DS, and no one would be interested.
They are screwed really, aren't they.
I think at the moment, Sony are very lucky that Microsoft hasn't waded into the portable market. Because as it stands, in the generic FPS, cleavage, swearing marking the Xbox brand is "cleaning up", in terms of giving the people what they think they want. An Xbag, Xbiscuit, Xportable would flood the market.
It seems that Sony are totally lost with the online potential of the PSP, they appear to be creaking into form. Even the name is a bit wonky, is it "Infrastructure" more thats the real Internet one or what?
More PSP's have been sold than DS's. The DS has sold around 16 million and the PSP has sold close to 17 million (the shipped figure is higher than that though, however that doesn't indicate actual sales).
Flawless.
How are they doing on Software sales?
Does the PS3 represent the pinnacle of gaming excellence?
Can I buy a desk with that?
Where's the GameGear 2?
How many people are there in a globe of cheese?
Word on the FIFA street was that Sony were losing money on the PSP has that stopped happening?
More PSP's have been sold than DS's. The DS has sold around 16 million and the PSP has sold close to 17 million (the shipped figure is higher than that though, however that doesn't indicate actual sales).
do you have tangible evidence of that? last time i saw the figures for each region, for that week the ds outsold the psp in the uk and japan and was a few thousand behind the psp. that was a month or so back...
i can't believe the psp has sold more units than the ds for second personally, bar sony showing off "shipped" figures which means nothing, i've never seen the psp outselling the ds anywhere.
Whatever the hardware sales, the software sales of the PSP are certainly not what Sony planned for, and that must be hurting them.
Also I'm sure they never expected the DS to outsell them so convincingly in Japan, and sell so closely in the West.
UMD seems to be a dying format too.
Regardless, thats not the question. The PSP hasn't done what Sony wanted or needed it to do, so - what do they do next?
I'm wondering if they will bite the bullet and try something new. 3D goggles? Wireless controller? Solid state with downloadable games? Three screens?
It won't be long before the only thing on UMD is games. A couple of studios have already stopped releasing movies on them. I think the price is putting people off as a UMD movie is rarely discounted on release. I would not pay over a tenner for a UMD movie as a DVD is cheaper and has extras.
As for games, I forget when I last paid "full price" for one. I suspect it was the American Wipeout Pure from VG+.
I think they would stand a better chance if they dropped the price of games to £29.99 and maybe released more exclusive titles.
As nice as the machine is (a friend of mine would rather have a PSP than a DS though admittedly he has not had hands-on experience with a DS) there are very few "wow" titles out there to tempt more people to buy one.
Xbox Gamertag - RogsR34UK
Yeah, the software library really lets them down. I don't think people expect any more from the PSP now other than cut down PS2 games...
and emulated PS1 games, that I don't think anyone actually wants.
do you have tangible evidence of that? last time i saw the figures for each region, for that week the ds outsold the psp in the uk and japan and was a few thousand behind the psp. that was a month or so back...
i can't believe the psp has sold more units than the ds for second personally, bar sony showing off "shipped" figures which means nothing, i've never seen the psp outselling the ds anywhere.
The general public don't get to see Sony's sales figures and Nintendo often publish false sales in certain regions (whether the latter is a mistake or intentiional has yet to be clarified). At present both devices are close to equal in terms of sales and subsequent marketshare, likewise software sales are comparable between the handhelds.
The DS has a larger marketshare in Japan but this is due to the several brain training games that have been released. Consequently the average age of DS owners in Japan is between 50 and 60, as such it is not predominantly viewed as a gaming device in that region (despite the bulk of games being developed there).
Consequently the average age of DS owners in Japan is between 50 and 60, as such it is not predominantly viewed as a gaming device in that region (despite the bulk of games being developed there).
I didn't know the average age is so old, no wonder Nintendo are so keen to pimp these new music/cooking style games on the Wii and NDS, i'm sure adults can relate to them more than Chibi Robo.
I didn't know the average age is so old, no wonder Nintendo are so keen to pimp these new music/cooking style games on the Wii and NDS, i'm sure adults can relate to them more than Chibi Robo.
You're missing the point; the DS isn't regarded by many in Japan as a gaming device. The brain training games serve a discernable purpose, to stall the onset of senility, and as such the DS is thought of as a pragmatic gadget. The reason the DS lends itself so well to the tests in the first place is due to the touch screen functionality, which emulates the pen and paper nature of the original tests (something the PSP can't do).
People generally have a poor estimation of gaming, mainly because it's regarded as a waste of time due to the skill set that you acquire being useless outside of the context of the individual games. The brain training exercises serve a real world purpose.
I think the boundaries of what are gaming devices are being changed.
I remember at that Nintendo gig I went to before the GC launch, the "average" age of GameBoy Advance players was 18 years old, not many of the games reflected that.
The Brain Age games, are still essentially score chasing games in the most stringent of game quantifying criterion.
Hell, I'll be 50 eventually, my sinilility will be staved off with Pac Man and Mario Bros, and Brain Age stuff, not cleavage killer 3.
What young Cacoid is trying to say is that refering to a Nintendo DS as a games player is wrong, which is utter balls mckenzie.
japan percieved non-gaming device.
you know what I mean.
I think the boundaries of what are gaming devices are being changed.
I remember at that Nintendo gig I went to before the GC launch, the "average" age of GameBoy Advance players was 18 years old, not many of the games reflected that.
The Brain Age games, are still essentially score chasing games in the most stringent of game quantifying criterion.
Hell, I'll be 50 eventually, my sinilility will be staved off with Pac Man and Mario Bros, and Brain Age stuff, not cleavage killer 3.
What young Cacoid is trying to say is that refering to a Nintendo DS as a games player is wrong, which is utter balls mckenzie.
To you or I it is a games machine, to most Japanese people it isn't. There's also conflicting evidence on whether games are good for you (in the cognitive sense), though a lot of the time the studies in question often use fatuous reasoning and methodology in order to "prove" that gaming makes you somewhow psychotic.
As for score chasing, IQ tests could be viewed in a similar manner but they aren't games. The same can be similarly said of the brain training exercises.
Gaming device boundaries are fixed really; you still play games on them predominantly (the brain training exercises were a fluke and one that isn't really being investigated further). The only real possible change is how the games are controlled but they still remain as games however.
Cacophanus, are you kinda saying that gaming as a hobby is frowned upon in Japan as it's an inefficient use of your time?
Cacophanus, are you kinda saying that gaming as a hobby is frowned upon in Japan as it's an inefficient use of your time?
It's more understood and accepted in Japan but ultimately you still have the same level of contempt for gaming as a "misuse" of your time, after all you should be studying and working towards becoming a doctor/lawyer/kazoo player etc.
The argument goes that "Games" as they are currently percieved are a finite market.
So my "problem" is that the 150million population of Japan are wrong.
Games is games, be they electronic, wooden or potatoe in form.
But Cacmundo is right, it all rolls around to this kinda gaming schism that's happening.
The young male playing games solidly for 400 hours and having their fun, vs. ms miggins playing brain age for 5 minutes a day and having their fun.
Who's right, who's wrong, what's a game, what isn't... no one cares. Everyone is having fun.
Group hug time.
Totally agree that the UMD format is dead in the water. There was never a market for UMD movies really imo. And as the price of solid state storage continues to plummet I can't see it recovering.
The biggest problem with PSP is the hardware itself. Once you've gotten over its big shiny dick of a screen you're left with something that is actually quite poorly designed.
It's far from dead as a system though with many "urban nomads" adopting it. That said I can't wait to see the distress the DS Lite causes when it's released over here. I'm expecting battles on the scale of Mods and Rockers.
Where do Sony go from here...?
1. Drop the UMD format
2. Give us a proper set of controls
3. RELEASE SOME GOOD GAMES.
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"Anyone who's played Namco's Cyber Sled and wished, however remotely, for a home version will be the first to figure it out:... - Tim Rogers
It's more understood and accepted in Japan but ultimately you still have the same level of contempt for gaming as a "misuse" of your time, after all you should be studying and working towards becoming a doctor/lawyer/kazoo player etc.
You are presenting opinion here as fact.
This may be the perception of some Japanese DS owners, but certainly not a majority, and certainlty not the people keeping software sales churning over. Nintendo have been getting 7 or 8 out of the 10 top sellers in Japan recently, and that isn't all Brain Training by a long shot. The PSP is miles behind in software sales.
You are presenting opinion here as fact.
Hardly, there are several Japanese sites (you probably can't read) that go into quite disparaging detail on gaming as being a waste of time. Reading the daily diatribe of average Japanese people on 2ch.net and it's clear that gaming, whilst understood and acknowledged more than it is here, is regarded by many as a misuse of your time.
This may be the perception of some Japanese DS owners, but certainly not a majority, and certainlty not the people keeping software sales churning over. Nintendo have been getting 7 or 8 out of the 10 top sellers in Japan recently, and that isn't all Brain Training by a long shot. The PSP is miles behind in software sales.
Those figures are recent though and most attributable to the recent release of the DS Lite, the slick re-design being the reason why younger people are now buying the handheld (as you said yourself, the older populace don't like the new version and prefer the original, masking those figures in the poorly monitored second hand market). The global software sales figures, as a whole, balance out across the DS and PSP.
I am getting a little tired of the rampant Ninty fanboyism in this thread. Games are meant to be fun not an excuse for an intricate belief system!
I am getting a little tired of the rampant Ninty fanboyism in this thread.
Yeah, you should be ashamed of yourself Cacophanus.
I am getting a little tired of the rampant Ninty fanboyism in this thread. Games are meant to be fun not an excuse for an intricate belief system!
Easy gov. I certaily wouldn't put myself in that bracket, but an apple's an apple and all that jazz. I actually own far less nintendo stuff (bar my stupid GBA collection) than I do for my other consoles.
Hypothetically if Nintendo hadn't made the DS and opted for Gameboy Advance 360 then I think we'd be sitting here aplauding the PSP. What's interesting here isn't that Sony put something out that's a fairly reasonable handheld version of the PS2, but the market forces that forced Nintendo (who were quite conservative with their hardware; late to adopt optical media) into producing something as radical as the DS and now the Wii. Ironically it's Sony and Microsoft with their blinkered focus on outdoing one another in the willy waving department that has created the vacuum that Ninty are now filling.
What makes me cry myself to sleep every night is that Nintendo are the new Sega.
Nintendo are the only ones left still making games consoles, furthermore you dont have to sell your first born child to be able to afford one!
Nothing wrong with a bit of love - SOMEONE has to!
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Nintendo are the only ones left still making games consoles, furthermore you dont have to sell your first born child to be able to afford one!
It probably will come down in price...probably.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5041690.stm
- "My sons can play these games but I can't and I want to challenge them."
http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/712/712675p1.html
- "Of course, while the PSP console is seeing brisk sales, it's worth noting that there wasn't a single PSP game that made the Top 20 list of best-selling games for May 2006."
Yeah, but the brain age phenomenon is a pain in the arse - it's not getting people into gaming, it's getting them into playing puzzle books and IQ tests on a screen. That's not video gaming. When the bubble bursts, will these older gamers still buy games? I'm not so sure. I think this is a signifier that Nintendo handheld consoles are reaching a massive audience, not that people are buying them to play Brain Age. But then, that's my opinion and not backed up by any kind of facts or stats
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I got my Dad to play Need for Speed on the 3do once... the single most amusing experience of my life.
The disconnect between pressing buttons and actually driving a car was too much for him. Its quite an abstract concept really.
Thats a primary source right there.
Yeah, but the brain age phenomenon is a pain in the arse - it's not getting people into gaming, it's getting them into playing puzzle books and IQ tests on a screen.
Yeah I agree, but it is giving people familiarity with gaming machines, which is half way there.
That BBC article suggests older gamers in Japan are becoming interested in what else the DS can do.
On Brain Age though - my parents hated it. So who knows.
I have a suspicion that the bottom may be dropping out of the PSP market. On RLLMUK and NTSC-UK I see a fair number of people selling PSP's. At one time they would go very quickly. Now, they seem to hang around. On the other hand the DS seems to be as popular as ever.
Touch Screen on a PSP? Nice idea I suppose. The danger would be a price point in excess of £200!
There are some good games available for the PSP, though there is also a good number that are probably not worth the time of day. One problem is that there does not seem a huge amount of variety in terms of the genres available. Decent RPG's? Not many. Simulation type games (including GT if they ever make it)? Very few really. OK, the Japanese get all their train sims I suppose and other sims but none are available outside of Japan (other than import of course). There is much more variety on the DS though there could be more use made of the touch screen.
I think one thing Sony could do would be to drop the price. Put it closer to a DS in price and the amount of interest could increase. Bit of a gamble I suppose...
Xbox Gamertag - RogsR34UK
The problem with the PSP, primarily, is that it's too expensive to develop for. Cheaper to develop for the PS2, and a wider market to boot. Shame, as you can get a heck of a lot out of it, when you try. That's why it's flooded with middleware, uninventive crap.
Still, there's some stuff coming out (the new Makaimura, LocoRoco, GT4 Portable etc.) that means people will look back at it as a decent machine. Stil the Sega Saturn of the handheld world, though, for sure.
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I thought there was a question mark over GT4 mobile. I have yet to see anything definite over a release date.
I have a pretty good selection of PSP games, yet I have only ever finished one of them... Shutokou Battle: Zone of Control.
I must say I liked the Locoroco demo. That game is almost treading on Nintendo's toes!
Xbox Gamertag - RogsR34UK
Initial D Street Stage is fantastic in my book. I know a lot of you don't agree with me on this.
Yes it's very similar to the PS2/Arcade versions; yes the card system is a bit of a chore. I don't really care to be honest it's still a brilliant game and worth picking up if you want a challenging and polished racer on the go.
So
Ridge Racer(
Initial D
Outrun C2C
The PSP is dripping with quality driving titles.
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I still think there is mileage (pun there) in Ridge Racer(
link up.
Nothing like a bit of competition.
Just seems like no one does it. Can you play in Infrastructure mode?
Hold on, can you play Initial D in any link up fashion?!!?!
Neither over Infrastructure, but both via ad hoc.
It's the only way to play InitialD against human oposition outside of the arcade. You also need to build up a good vs record to unlock some of the rarer cards in the deck. I've only ever played it once two player, but the experience was excellent (I won
)
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Initial D Street Stage is fantastic in my book. I know a lot of you don't agree with me on this.
I'm warming to it a lot, actually. Watching Stage 4 recently has helped
The card system is ok I think, not any worse than the points system before.
The only real problem for me are the controls, I can't get on with the nubbin, and the d-pad is a little too twitchy.
Is it a little more detailed than the PS2 version graphically, or is my memory playing tricks on me? I'd have a bash at the PS2 version to find out if, the latest v14 PS2s could actually run the damn thing with crashing.
Can't say. My PS2 version is on loan to charlesr. I love the attention to detail, can't remember the name of the track, but the one with the road works sticking out on the straight is that episode where Keisuke sneaks through the tiny gap left *wub*
Paper you need to make sure the control sensitivity is set to 1 in the options. That helps an awful lot, but still doesn't fix the problem 100%. It's such a shame as a decent analogue input could transform this into something quite special. It's by far my biggest complaint with the system and I hope Sony address it in a future redesign. If they do it could breath some life into the PSP back cat too in the same way the light addition to the GBA SP did with my collection of GBA games.
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"There was at a 5cm gap, if you don't understand that then I'm not even going to speak to you"
I'll try that sensitivity setting.
"There was at a 5cm gap, if you don't understand that then I'm not even going to speak to you"
Love it. Keisuke becomes properly bad in the 4th stage. His character gets a whole new layer of depth. What's cool about InitialD is that the cars grow with the characters.
Still can't get over the blind attack. "That's not the sound of my engine?"
I have a fully tuned FD, FC and 86. Still haven't found the sticker card I need to finish off the cosmetics though
Ah, I have the AE86 sticker, but step 1 on most of the body parts.
How far are you through the 1 player challenges? Once it gets to Stage 4 characters I lose it.
I think we could easily suck Jibber into Initial D with this game. A Sega Rally player should love it.
We've had the Sega Rally debate....
And all signs point to win, I was going to get the PS2 version but bottled it for some reason...
Sega Rosco isn't it, like I thought before its more Sega Rally, than Sega Rally...
Was I being pedantic about the wheel support?
Ahh well, Initial D in adhoc versus, getting into the anime, might do the trick on PSP purchase as I thought it might.
Ah you bugger. WIsh my luck would change and give me a sticker card
I'm not sure you can upgrade the tune of the body parts individually only the engine using the tune cards. Max is step 5 for each vehicle. You should defo get them tuned up asap if you want to stand a chance later on (select the option on the left of the upgrade screen to tune your engine). I'm about 50% complete. I keep getting rinsed by the Cappuchino and the Altezza. I've yet to unlock Bunta on Akina as I haven't beaten Takumi in the rain
.
Akina is particularly annoying as it's the middle higher speed section that I fuck up on. Also I can't seem to carry as much speed through the hairpins as before.
The 86 with the high rev engine is also a bit of a bastard to drive. It's basically zero tollerance in terms of screwing up.
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I've yet to unlock Bunta on Akina as I haven't beaten Takumi in the rain
.
Same here, and my hairpin technique is shocking. I really need to tune up, it sounds like.
I need to unlock Bunta and his Impreza badly.
http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=23465
So, the redesign has been confirmed, although no real details were divulged (so not really news tbh).
More interestingly though - what on earth is the 'PSP in Education' initiative? Are Sony really getting that desperate now that they're trying to shift it as an educational learning resource to schools?
Nah it'll be some bollocks in response to brain training, big brain academy et al.
Just to summarise my feelings
Fix Battery
Fix Screen
Fix Controls
If they don't use this oportunity to do that then forget it.
we print some educational material where I work from time to time... and they were giving away PSPs for some reason or other... its all to do with students having them in class and learning via wifi or something hideous... the software isn't ready yet so its not been announced announced and I shouldn't probably know about it.
I'm wondering if they could possibly add a touch screen... I don't see it.
They lose money on the PSP, so they really don't want to give too many people an excuse to buy the newer model. If they did they would have to release some add-on for the existing PSP making it even more clunky, I can't see them going for that. Then there is the fact that it would be such an obvious design steal, and seem to be a partial admission that the original design was off.
I reckon we'll see a clamshell design which would allow them to make it narrower and fix the controls at the same time. If they did that the UMD could be off to one side allowing them to fit a larger battery too, and they could even retain some of the existing apperance (curved edges, cut off corners). With a bigger battery Sony could start approving 333MHz speed software as well.
Clamshell does seem like a logical move. They've stated somewhere that the screen will be the same size, but the thing will be more compact. I don't see a way of making it smaller without some sort of slide or flip action.
If they go for a slider to be different to Nintendo I simply won't forgive them.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/26698/Sony-slashes-PSP-price
The new price seems fairly tempting.
Funnily enough the day of the price drop just happens to be my birthday, I've not experience a PSP yet and the new price might just tempt me, if only just to play the ridge racer games. (I'm ashamed to say I've never played a ridge racer game :shocked:).
I have to say, the PS1 emulator included with the latest firmwares is very impressive.
Sony should really set up an iTunes-like service that lets you rip your own PS1 games and pay for download games, turning the PSP into a PS1 player. They are half way there with the PS3 download service, but that should really also be available for PC.
Not being able to officially rip your own games to PSP is stupid too. Sony would instantly have a massive compatibility testing group for free, and simultaneously make the PSP worth using.
Portable Bishi Bashi for the win!
Am I right in thinking you can't use the PS1 emu without downloading a ROM from the playstation store via a PS3?
That would be a pain in the buttocks. Having friends with PS3 is a good thing
Its included in the latest firmware.
But to play games, currently, you need a PS3 to purchase, download and (I think) digitally sign the game images for your PSP.
The modified firmwares that are out there let you rip and convert your own PS1 games and run them on your PSP, instead.