charlequin said:
The distinction you're drawing here isn't all that relevant. 3DS is full of games like Resident Evil and MGS that appeal to the traditional 18-35 male gamer. The reason no one's going to sit down and weigh out "do I buy an iPhone or a 3DS" is that they do almost completely non-overlapping things.
I think even Nintendo recognises that this demographic wasn't as effectively addressed with DS as they would have liked. They've made no secret of the fact that they want the DS market they already have AND the PSP market. I think Reggie in E3 interviews even expressed it in such terms.
It's not necessarily a mutually exclusive thing, true - you're not necessarily going to buy one to the exclusion of the other, because to date they have differed greatly in the experience they offer. But the smartphone makes a better case for being the primary pocket device, and as their gaming competencies increase, that puts things like the PSP at risk that users will spend more gaming time on their 'smart' device vs their dedicated handheld.
charlequin said:
Sony's market in the handheld space is more vulnerable than Nintendo's because they launched a product that was supposed to be a convergence media-player/gaming-system that was wtfpwned by the rise of the iPhone in the former category and didn't succeed as well as Nintendo's offering in the second category, so they have a product that's an also-ran rather than a market-leader in both categories.
They're at risk more than simply because of how things turned out this gen.
As I said above, if the PSP owner is also a iPhone/smartphone owner or aspirant - which is I think more true of the PSP demographic than Nintendo's - as time goes on it puts PSP at more risk if those people spend increasing amounts of time and money gaming on that device rather than their PSP. I think undoubtedly that's already started to happen somewhat, and I think it's probable it would become more and more common going forward.
charlequin said:
Errr... why?
The Playstation brand name itself is not all that valuable for this purpose -- not now after its previous two portable outings were a middling success (PSP) and a ginormous failure (PSP Go) respectively.
In terms of PSP, next to DS it may be a middling success, but in terms of user volume, it was as successful in its first few years as iPhone was. That's not insubstantial.
Google wishes Android to have serious credibility and a differentiator vs Apple wrt gaming, and any of the existing 'gaming companies' could be attractive here. If you wanted to partner with an existing games platform to these ends you have maybe 3 choices. Of the 3, I don't think Playstation is the least attractive, or unattractive at all in absolute terms.
In terms of differentiation, it offers them a path to 'serious' gaming content at more premium prices, via Sony the support of 'serious' game developers, something even Apple hasn't entirely figured out yet. If they can successfully rope off more premium games content at higher prices sitting alongside the cheaper bite-sized stuff, it's a trick no one else has pulled yet, and Sony does offer experience and existing content here.
I also wouldn't dismiss the back catalogue. It is 'old', but it's still technologically competitive with anything in the mobile space, and I think it could attract new users. Thinking of myself I haven't touched my PSP in years. I don't even know where it is. I don't want a dedicated handheld unless it's doing something really different (like DS did). But if I could roll PSP into a Android phone? It'd become a 'why not' matter, and I've little doubt I'd rediscover the library in that context, while netting Google a new Android user. There are some people who don't necessarily want
a PSP but who would not say no to PSP games if they were available on their phone or tablet. If you get where I'm coming from. I think here, context is as important as content, and I guess the bet might be that there's more people like me out there.
(Should be said, though, again that it's not totally clear in the article if this device, even, if PSP compatible anyway...but I hope it would be.)
charlequin said:
it would involve locking down their gaming system with closed-source, proprietary software, taking an extra cut from market software that used it (which currently pays only the 30% carrier cut out from sales) to pay Sony, and potentially wrecking the platform entirely if Sony decides down the road that they're no longer interested and pulls out of the agreement. In that scenario, why wouldn't Google just develop their own system?
If something didn't work out, it's probably best for all to part ways. Such a move wouldn't necessarily be retroactive however - playstation games wouldn't disappear from Android devices spontaneously. It'd be more a case of Sony, say, creating a new closed playstation platform that had nothing to do with it. Though it's not something Google would like, it wouldn't diminish the benefits of the relationship up to that point, Google will still have gained what they gained up until then.
As for openness, I'm not entirely convinced it's an issue that Sony's completely rigid on. I do agree though, that if Sony was intending to remain entirely 'closed' it makes the detail of an agreement like that suggested harder to fathom, more complicated.
The article isn't very clear on this though...
and i'd rather spend my money on this than purchsng a X10 
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