Well we are in to our second month in 2009 and Sony has let the news break that they are “promising” to reinvigorate the PSP market. I read this news and I just thought to my self wow here we go again. Another wave of promises from Sony to get behind their PSP platform. Have we not heard all this before time and time again? We are after all on our 3rd version of the PSP with these promises to really push the software for this newest version.
Let’s be honest here the hand held gaming market is changing radically fast thanks to Apple and their “app store” and gaming features. No longer can you depend on 1st party games to carry your system anymore. We are talking about mobile gaming after all. People are not expecting PC or Console powered gaming on their hand helds. People want fun and easy games to take up that in between time which is the beauty of the games in the Apple app store.
Simple and in some cases super cheap to make for game developers and in a lot of cases just everyday independent people who have a knack for gaming programming. I guess what I am getting at is that until Sony comes out with an app store to really open up the gaming possibilities they are not going to see the kind of growth they are in need of. For example the have you heard of Doodle Kids for the iPhone? It’s an app that was created by a 9 year old wiz kid and his games has been downloaded well over 4000 times in about two weeks. Only possible because Apple has opened up the app store to anyone with an idea.
I know the rumours of the PSP2 being a full fledged cell phone and gaming unit will continue as the year goes on and we may very well see a PSP2 phone later this year. But unless Sony brings an App store with the new PSP2 it will be doomed to suffer along in a mediocre life span of second or even third place!
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Agreed, but fix the rest of the 'features' first – Now, I've just had a close look at my PSP's features:
PlayStationStore: terrific, snagged Super Stardust and love it. One day, I'll even start downloading full PSP games, when they're cheaper than you can buy in a store. I also pick up lots of PSOne games, so this is becoming a fun little hub, shame about the "view by genre" mode that's a waste of time. Especially when most genres only have three or four entries.
RSS: Jesus H Corbett! How are users supposed to believe that Sony supports them when the US RSS site was last updated in 2007, the Europe portal has a link to the naff Crackle service and the Japanese one is packed with smart local content. Have the US and European content managers just lost this bit of the site off the edge of their PowerPoint presentation? This is something that would keep users switching on their PSPs for current content instead of consigning it the back of the games drawer, and maybe even buy some new games. The trouble with a portable system is that we can put it down, and forget about it. The PSP needs to give us reasons to use it, RSS is one major use of my mobile phone, just a little bit of care and a weekly update of video and audio RSS sites from Sony and the machine becomes a little bit more indispensable.
Internet radio: Hardly likely to replace my MP3 player but sometimes useful when you want some different background noise.
PlayStation Spot: Yeah, that was a great idea – if you clicked it and the program informed you where the nearest one was, it might be useful. If it had money-saving vouchers for the store it led you to, even better.
UMD Games: Crisis Core is the only game I've purchased this year, in memory anyhow, says it all really Sony!
Music: I guess I can copy my iTunes+ tracks over to it, but without its own (DRM-free) store, what really is the point?
Video: Once brought Casino Royale in a sale, again – no store: no point.
Great blog found this via twitter im just adding to my blog now.
great blog, will be adding some to my new blog
I could certainly see an APP store doing well. Even if it was nothing on the scale of the Apple app store, even a few apps would be good for users.
I also think it would be a motivation for potential developers to build on the app network.
Having said that, does the PSP really have the capabilities that something like iPhone has?
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