Loco On: The PSP’s Outlook
Loco On is a weekly column written by Get Loco founder and blogger locoroco, who also does a weekly podcast and monthly newsletter for his LocoRoco-based blog.
SONY first showed off their PSP to much acclaim; people were finally convinced that Nintendo no longer stood a chance in the mobile market. But, when Nintendo released their much-anticipated and thinner DS Lite, the hyped software Nintendo promised finally arrived. This double hit hurt the PSP severely. It didn’t help that SONY couldn’t figure out its own home market of Japan, who was swallowing Lite’s faster than the market could allow. Besides Monster Hunter, there was no game that really captivated the Japanese audience. In the United States, SONY focused on watching the field play out. The PSP was doing well, until the Brain Age-revolution began and the DS started selling like hotcakes.
Now, though, SONY is facing criticism from every side of the spectrum–especially on their Playstation 3 investment–but there’s still good news for them. The PSP has a bright future with third-party gaming support in addition to first/second-party popping up in unexpected places. Bethesda Studios is working on Oblivion for PSP. In the meantime, Ready at Dawn is working on creating a mobile God of War. Studio Liverpool has shown interest in creating a sequel to WipEout Pure, Sony Computer Entertainment is quietly planning several upcoming LocoRoco projects, and SONY is continuing to show support by continually updating firmwares and adding new demos. Capcom is planning to bring Monster Hunter 2 to the US and Europe, and a recent price cut has increased sales.
Everything isn’t perfect, though. SONY has still not delivered on a promised digital distribution system for the PSP that would bring both video, demos, and emulated games to the PSP. We were hoping that March’s Game Developers Conference would give way to more about this, but it only disappointed us more. SONY has signed numerous agreements with sites like Vongo and Amazon Unbox in order to bring content to both the PS3 and PSP, but neither have seemed to be working out.
Second, peripherals and extra colors for the PSP have been at a standstill in the United States and many other territories sans Japan. As much as SONY has ramped up PSP support in Japan, the same needs to be done in other territories. The sleek camera and GPS feature could be improved a lot, particularly the camera. If zoom and more megapixels are added, SONY can dual-advertise it as both an EyeToy-capable device and a digital camera that you can carry around. SONY has failed to push the interesting headset into games (especially their own first-party ones) and increase the amount of Infrastructure Wi-Fi available.
SONY has recently taken some more measures to make the PSP better, and they’ve even begun ignoring critics who say that the PSP is a joke thanks to the lack of gaming and support for multimedia features, focusing on what they think is better. We’re unsure if this is the right thing to do, but we are hoping for the best. With such a bright device in the hands of so many people, it’s time for SONY to unleash its capabilities.
Until next time,
–loco.
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