Chittagong
Gold Member
It's interesting to see Sony today come out and admit what everyone has known for a while: PSP is not doing well.
This has taken pretty much everyone by surprise. The thinking after E3 2004 was that Sony has a clear winner in their hands. So, I thought it'd be interesting to discuss what are the possible product concept shortcomings contributing to the unexpectedly poor performance.
I realize this thread has the potential to turn into a trainwreck and get locked, but I still think it'd be great to debate this, since we already had the software debate. So keep it clean.
Here are my analysis of the main conceptual challenges of PSP:
Unclear positioning: While the form factor and user interface of PSP communicated gaming, it was heavily promoted as an overall "media concept", with gaming as one of the cases. Remember the "red media icons" campaign. I believe this was to justify the higher price and to broaden the demographic, but it might have just confused the market.
Multimedia use cases prioritized redundant UMD instead of digital: The main focus for music and video use cases was on UMD delivery of media. The world had moved onto digital media delivery already, so a new physical format wasn't bound to take off. Consumers weren't willing to invest on a format that wouldn't work in their current ecosystem.
Digital multimedia use cases executed poorly: PSP doesn't deliver well on music, photo and video use cases straight out of the box.
1. Unless you got a Giga Pack, the first thing you have to do is to get a bigger memory stick.
2. Once connecting with USB to PC, you have actually to go to a menu to set on USB.
3. PSP doesn't tap into your existing media libraries automatically.
4. Video requires conversion. Compared to Cowan media player that plays anything you've got from online regardless of format and resolution, PSP is a hassle.
5. Stupid folder and file naming conventions that make digital media usage a pain.
6. E-commerce platform still not there.
Weight and size: PSP is rather large and bulky, mainly due to the disc drive and 4" screen. This makes it less than convenient to carry around with than iPod, DS or a N73.
Perceived fragility: The combination of a large, beautiful screen, an non-folding form factor, a glossy surface and a disc drive clearly communicated to consumers that PSP is fragile. Whether this is actually the case can be debated.
Media choice hindered the main use case - gaming on go: Because of the UMD load times, the fact that the disc just needs to start spinning makes going in and out of games tedious, a lot less snappy than on DS or mobile. This created an additional barrier to start playing.
The misleading audience "wow": Like we saw in E3 2004, crowds were very quick to say "wow!" to the impressive screen, glossy surface and 3D graphics. The product has probably done really well in focus groups, too. In this short exposure, the conceptual challenges like the perceived fragility and poor media use cases, are overruled by the sheer "wow". These concerns have re-entered once the consumers have considered purchase.
This has taken pretty much everyone by surprise. The thinking after E3 2004 was that Sony has a clear winner in their hands. So, I thought it'd be interesting to discuss what are the possible product concept shortcomings contributing to the unexpectedly poor performance.
I realize this thread has the potential to turn into a trainwreck and get locked, but I still think it'd be great to debate this, since we already had the software debate. So keep it clean.
Here are my analysis of the main conceptual challenges of PSP:
Unclear positioning: While the form factor and user interface of PSP communicated gaming, it was heavily promoted as an overall "media concept", with gaming as one of the cases. Remember the "red media icons" campaign. I believe this was to justify the higher price and to broaden the demographic, but it might have just confused the market.
Multimedia use cases prioritized redundant UMD instead of digital: The main focus for music and video use cases was on UMD delivery of media. The world had moved onto digital media delivery already, so a new physical format wasn't bound to take off. Consumers weren't willing to invest on a format that wouldn't work in their current ecosystem.
Digital multimedia use cases executed poorly: PSP doesn't deliver well on music, photo and video use cases straight out of the box.
1. Unless you got a Giga Pack, the first thing you have to do is to get a bigger memory stick.
2. Once connecting with USB to PC, you have actually to go to a menu to set on USB.
3. PSP doesn't tap into your existing media libraries automatically.
4. Video requires conversion. Compared to Cowan media player that plays anything you've got from online regardless of format and resolution, PSP is a hassle.
5. Stupid folder and file naming conventions that make digital media usage a pain.
6. E-commerce platform still not there.
Weight and size: PSP is rather large and bulky, mainly due to the disc drive and 4" screen. This makes it less than convenient to carry around with than iPod, DS or a N73.
Perceived fragility: The combination of a large, beautiful screen, an non-folding form factor, a glossy surface and a disc drive clearly communicated to consumers that PSP is fragile. Whether this is actually the case can be debated.
Media choice hindered the main use case - gaming on go: Because of the UMD load times, the fact that the disc just needs to start spinning makes going in and out of games tedious, a lot less snappy than on DS or mobile. This created an additional barrier to start playing.
The misleading audience "wow": Like we saw in E3 2004, crowds were very quick to say "wow!" to the impressive screen, glossy surface and 3D graphics. The product has probably done really well in focus groups, too. In this short exposure, the conceptual challenges like the perceived fragility and poor media use cases, are overruled by the sheer "wow". These concerns have re-entered once the consumers have considered purchase.
