Shit! I was disappointing my cheerleaders.
bmf said:
I'm curious if he'll show up given his stance on the matter of the future of the PSP. He was rather verbal about it.
Not that much to point out here that wasn't already true in the last thread. Sony is firesaleing their PSP games and throwing free shit at Go owners to try to keep the platform afloat for a few more months. They're denying the existence of a PSP2 because acknowledging it before they're ready to officially reveal it would be counterproductive to that strategy. Pretty much everything they're doing fits with the idea of, say, a TGS reveal followed by a late Q2 2011 launch -- i.e. about the latest they can get away with launching it without getting totally fucking steamrolled by 3DS.
esquire said:
The fact that they clung so tightly to a proprietary format like UMD should have been the first warning sign of this lack of vision for what the PSP was supposed to be.
How could you tell it was a Sony device without a bizarre fixation on a proprietary media format, though? :lol
Or do they want to create something truly unique and new?
I do still think a network-oriented handheld built around a good asynchronous network design would at least have the potential to offer something "new."
JWong said:
We're talking about 66 million PSPs and 128 million DSs. Sony has done well.
In terms of pure unit sellthrough, Sony has done
fantastic. In terms of the Japanese marketplace, Sony has also done extremely well (PSP is still ultimately going to be the #2 system out of five in that market this generation.) But I do think you have to balance that against Sony completely squandering an excellent start in the West and thereby leaving themselves with a huge uphill climb for the PSP2.
Ultimately, taken together, this puts you in either the "disappointing success" or "impressive failure" category, which are only a stone's throw from one another anyway. In terms of successfulness it's probably somewhere around the level of the OG Xbox (sold more, but positioned its successor less well).
Tellaerin said:
By your logic (and I use the word loosely here), the X360 and PS3 are both failures, too.
The PS3 is unambiguously a failure if you measure it at this exact moment (having destroyed Sony's market leadership and more than wiped out all profits its predecessors ever earned) though Sony's fighting a very strong fight to end the generation with it better off. The 360 is a qualified success/failure of a similar type to the PSP -- it sort of did what MS wanted, it's doing well in some places, but it has some huge structural weaknesses and hasn't been profitable the way it ought to be.
I would agree that relative positioning is important to take into account -- the PSP should absolutely get a ton of credit for popping into the Nintendo-dominated market and carving out that much room for itself.
Mako_Drug said:
I look it as a way for Sony to win the HD format wars. Probably the way Sony looked at it to.
Was it a success? Sure was.
Just to be clear, the total lifetime royalties Sony can expect to ever bring in from BRD royalties pale in comparison to the losses they generated via the PS3. If they really did sacrifice the game market to win the video disc market, it was a Pyrrhic victory at best.
GDGF said:
Sony just might be re-evaluating what the PSP2 should even be at this point.
Way too late for that!
