Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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Dylan
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Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

Post by Dylan »

http://kotaku.com/5546731/the-fall-of-t ... -says-sony

Of course, piracy is the real reason the PSP's so far behind in the market. I honestly can't see how anyone would think this is the sole reason that the PSP can't keep up. Heck, DS games get pirated like they're unsupervised Costco samples.
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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The real reason for the fall of the PSP is:
A) No advertising for games. When was the last time you saw an ad for a PSP game? I think the last I remember was Monster Hunter, and I was blown away not by the game, but because "Holy crap! An ad for a PSP game?"

Sure, there were tons of ads for the system itself... but no one cares about the system if there aren't any games that they know they need to get for it.

B) Make it an open platform. They know why people buy it, so just play to the strengths of it. You can secure your games through other methods.

C) If I want to get the best games for the PSP, I have to get friendly with Europe and Japan. It's ridiculous how some of the best games never make it here - Sony of America should have been trying with all of their hearts to get games like Breath of Fire III, Princess Crown, Tales of Eternia, Intelligent Qube Mania and the Bleach games here in America - but no. They dropped the ball, big time.

D) You are competing directly with Nintendo on it's most dominant playground. That's the biggest issue here.
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MrPopo
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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the7k wrote:C) If I want to get the best games for the PSP, I have to get friendly with Europe and Japan. It's ridiculous how some of the best games never make it here - Sony of America should have been trying with all of their hearts to get games like Breath of Fire III, Princess Crown, Tales of Eternia, Intelligent Qube Mania and the Bleach games here in America - but no. They dropped the ball, big time.
To be fair, Princess Crown would be a real bitch to localize, since it's just a Saturn emu running the original game (source was lost). But I agree on the rest.
D) You are competing directly with Nintendo on it's most dominant playground. That's the biggest issue here.
I remember Reggie mentioning just how many competitors Nintendo has buried in the handheld market in response to the PSP. Say what you will about Nintendo, but they know how to sell a handheld.
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Anayo
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

Post by Anayo »

I agree that Sony's problem is Nintendo, not piracy.
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Dylan
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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Exactly. Probably the biggest problem I have though is the way Sony is shifting the blame onto external sources. It's obviously impossible for Sony to make bad business decisions, so the responsible party is the user base. Sony needs to get a little less arrogant and start acknowledging its mistakes before it keeps compounding the colossal train wreck it's in right now.
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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Dylan
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

Post by Dylan »

puke_face wrote:I'm pulling the Luke card.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 26&t=19527
Oops, my mistake. I usually try to be good about that.
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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puke_face wrote:I'm pulling the Luke card.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 26&t=19527
Well, this is in response to a recent story. That topic hasn't been active for a few months.

Also, the guy does admit some fault lies with Sony.
We have EA Sports stuff that's going to be coming out. You're going to have Toy Story 3 on the PSP that's coming out. There's a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I'm not going to bullshit you on that.
At least they are admitting the line-up hasn't been as strong as it should be.
Last edited by the7k on Mon May 24, 2010 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

Post by dsheinem »

Hardware sales, according to Wikipedia...

PSP - Worldwide: 66.7 million (as of March 31st, 2010)
GBA - Worldwide: 81.50 million, all versions combined (as of December 31, 2009)

That's really not so bad, considering it is their first attempt at a handheld. The NGPC sold 2 million and the Game Gear 11 million. Granted, the original GameBoy and NDS are almost twice the sales of the PSP, but Sony still accomplished a solid share of the handheld market- something no other company had done previously. I also frequently see PSP games topping the charts in Japan (Monster Hunter, mostly) where piracy is also rampant.

But yeah, overall their software sales (especially in the US) are dismal.
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Re: Apparently piracy is the PSP's problem

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Dylan wrote:Exactly. Probably the biggest problem I have though is the way Sony is shifting the blame onto external sources. It's obviously impossible for Sony to make bad business decisions, so the responsible party is the user base. Sony needs to get a little less arrogant and start acknowledging its mistakes before it keeps compounding the colossal train wreck it's in right now.
Yep. Sony's problem is arrogance. They got arrogant because their first console was a runaway success, they followed it up with another run-away success. They got complacent. They thought that their Playstation brand was bullet proof, that they could quite confidently shit in a box and sell it with the logo and make a killing.

Sony are just an arrogant company, they always have been. They need to learn to admit that they've made mistakes, like removing PS2 BC from PS3, removing homebrew capability from the PSP, pricing their systems out of the reach of the average gamer and releasing the PSPGO. They need to eat some humble pie and get favour back with the gamers otherwise they're gonna keep on this slippery slope until their division fails, taking the rest of the company with it, since they'll be too arrogant to admit that it's failing and bleed money from the rest of the company to keep the Playstation brand afloat.

It doesn't help with the bloody PS3 fanboys eating up Sony's shit spoonful after spoonful. They just take it and keep coming back for more.
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