[ Каскадный ] · Стандартный · Линейный R.I.P. PSP, размышления о жизни PSP (статья)

[rejo]

There comes a time in every system's life when you know there really isn’t any hope left. We take a detailed look at why it’s time to lay the PSP to rest.

The PSP was doomed to fail from the very beginning. With high development costs, a lack of hit games, the UMD movie format, its poor E3 performances, and the competition it faces from the formidable DS Lite, the PSP is now on its last leg. As the following paragraphs reveal in detail, the PSP has started down the road of no return and with each passing moment digs itself farther and farther into its grave.

It all started on March 24, 2005. The PSP was to end Nintendo’s dominating presence in the handheld market just as the Playstation and Playstation 2 took the home console market. The PSP has far superior graphics, a bigger screen, and multimedia functionality. All this extra power did come at a price. The PSP was $100 dollars more than the DS and $170 dollars more than a GBA.



The PSP’s power also had a price for developers who would now have to spend upwards of ten times the amount of money to develop a PSP game as opposed to a GBA game. In 2005 a survey by The Japanese Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association reported that the average development costs for a PSP game was the same as a GCN game and just short of a PS2 game.

From a developer’s point of view committing the same or more resources to a PSP game which has a considerably smaller install base than a PS2, GCN, or GBA system means a smaller return on their investment. In the game industry taking a risk like this is not what most companies want to do. The results of which are a lot of PS2 games watered down to be ported to the PSP, often resulting in mediocre experiences and thus poor sales.

The UMD can hold a lot more information than any GBA cart ever could and was also a way to have the PSP play movies. A great idea for an all-in-one entertainment device, but for gaming on the go dealing with load times is a real pain. Handheld gaming is all about taking out the system on your way to school, work, or while waiting on your wife to try on 20 pairs of shoes. Every second that you have to wait for a level to load is game time lost. With the PSP load times are necessary and the more the UMD spins the more battery power is used up, again resulting in lost game time.

The Games

To date there are currently only three PSP titles that have sold over one million units. They include Grand Theft Auto: Liberty Stories with 2.84 million, Ridge Racer with 1.04 million, and Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee at 1 million. For a system that is almost a year and a half old this is yet another sign of how poorly the PSP is doing. The Xbox 360 already has three different million sellers and is less than a year old, while the DS has thirteen with only a 4 month head start (not too many games were released in that four month period either!)

There simply doesn’t seem to be any “killer app” in the future for the PSP besides maybe Gran Turismo; however, who knows when that is coming out since it has been delayed several times with still no official release date.



UMD Movies

UMD movies seemed huge at first with every major movie studio supporting the format. At the beginning of this year there were 330 different movies available for the PSP while there were only 100 games. Also at the beginning of the year there have been 9 million games sold and 8 million UMD movies sold. With sale numbers that high for UMD movies clearly some people are buying the PSP for movie playback first and games second, if at all.

A combination of poor UMD sales recently and HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVD formats now on the market movie studios have either scaled back or discontinued bringing movies out for the UMD format. Last week a further blow to the UMD movie format was made when Target announced that it will no longer carry UMD movies. Also Wal-Mart along with Best Buy are rumored to be making their UMD displays much smaller possibly killing any hopes of future UMD movies being produced.

Perhaps in response to the declining sales of UMDs recently Sony has announced MemoryStick Entertainment Packs which will sell for $60 - $100 dollars. These packs work by loading the enclosed DVD into your computer and choosing only one of four movies that you can then download to your MemoryStick and watch on your PSP. Sony claims that this has been in the works for a while but it’s hard not to see the declining sales and movie studios scaling back production for UMDs not playing a factor in this decision.

Wii, PS3, and Microsoft’s Portable

With everything mentioned above the rest of the year looks even worse for the PSP with both the Nintendo Wii and the PS3 being released. Recently there have been a lot of articles examining the price of the PS3 and what else could be purchased with the same amount of money, so with the next ten months in mind let’s take this logic and apply it to the PSP.

A PSP system will set you back $250, and with two games that brings the total to $330 dollars. In October or possibly November the Nintendo Wii will be released, though no official price has been announced. We’ll assume it to be $225 (most predictions have it between $200 and $250). With two games (assuming that each game will be $40 dollars) that would take your total to $305. Next up the PS3 will launch at a price of $600 and with two games (assuming each game will be $50 dollars) your total will be $700. We can’t leave out the Xbox 360 with a price tag of $400 and two games bringing the total to $500 dollars. Finally the DS Lite’s total with two games comes to $200 dollars.



What does all this mean exactly? It means you can own a Nintendo Wii and two games for less or a Nintendo DS and not only two but six games for about the same price as a PSP with two games.

Another looming threat for the PSP comes in the form of a handheld multimedia device from Microsoft that is rumored to be an iPod killer. Whatever happens with Microsoft’s portable one thing is for sure, Microsoft has no problem throwing tons of cash around to make sure it succeeds. The Xbox was not a profitable success but it did give them the reputation and the respect they needed to launch the Xbox 360. I have no doubt that a handheld device from Microsoft would try to take over the handheld multimedia market no matter what the cost and possibly be the final nail in the PSP’s coffin.

Not All is Lost

Good news comes from hackers who use the PSP’s multimedia functions to create homebrew software. This type of activity will keep the system alive long after Sony throws in the towel. The PSP can also now be linked up with TiVo so you can transfer your recorded TV shows and watch them on the go. Watching TV shows instead of movies makes more sense when you consider the PSP’s battery life. The downside is it’s an extra $25 dollars a month and can only be played back in 320x240 instead of the PSP’s native resolution of 480x272!



Another positive announcement is that soon Sony could be offering over 7,000 PS1 games to download to your PSP. With an iTunes type download service for games this is exciting news, just what the PSP needs. Finally plans for a price drop towards the end of the year could also help move units especially for those who are on the fence. It would also fix the money problem gamers face with all the new consoles coming to the market as mentioned above.

Conclusion

In the end the PSP still has a very steep hill to climb and currently there are many more reasons not to invest in this system than there are reasons to purchase one. Overall the PSP’s game library lacks hit software, UMD movies are on their way out with a very weak MemoryStick option replacing it, the past two years at E3 have been near disastrous, the DS Lite shines brighter in every aspect, and finally gamers budgets are going to be very strained over the course of the next ten months at least as we all rush to buy the Wii, PS3, or an Xbox 360.



There comes a time in every system’s life when you know there really isn’t any hope left, we’ve all seen it with Virtual Boy, Dreamcast, and N64 just to name a few. At first it’s hard to accept and though there might seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel it usually turns out to be a new system with a promise that it will be better this time around. Bottom line: Trade in the PSP while you can still get a decent deal!

Article by Thomas Barton.
http://consolemedia.gameworldnetwork.com/a...php/id/747/p/1/

[Chubaka]

Первый шаг сделан.. остался второй. Залезть на оф сайт сони и скопировать оттуда весь контент, как есть, на японском.