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It's amazing how the perception of Sony's PlayStation Portable has changed within a matter of months. "The PSP will elevate portable entertainment out of the handheld gaming ghetto," said Kaz Hirai, president of Sony CEA, at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. "The PSP is full of innovation far superior to anything on the market today. Just as the PlayStation in 1995 revolutionized gaming and the way our industry does business, PSP will serve as the disrupter in the portable entertainment space." However, the way the industry does business also makes it easy for something like the PSP to cause outlandish expectations amongst consumers with statements like that. And the way that consumers ultimately do business requires that quality be partnered with a consistent flow of software for a new system. As electronics history has shown, having great hardware is only part of the equation.
The PSP has traveled the spectrum of being hailed as the greatest piece of hardware since the introduction of the original PlayStation to being treated like a Goodwill store where developers drop off bare-bones ports and shoddy, old games. Since the release of the PSP on March 24, 2005, to the time of this writing, there have been
Most PSP games weren't built from the ground up.
The PSP has traveled the spectrum of being hailed as the greatest piece of hardware since the introduction of the original PlayStation to being treated like a Goodwill store where developers drop off bare-bones ports and shoddy, old games. Since the release of the PSP on March 24, 2005, to the time of this writing, there have been approximatelyapproximately 30 games released, 17 of which were released during the launch window. Around 10 or so of the games available could be considered ports of PlayStation 2 games, which is about one-third of the entire PSP library. And if you work out the math with the number of games released since the launch period, it comes out to less than one PSP game release per week—.76 games to be exact.
Even though there's always a slow period after the launch of new hardware, that's still not a lot of games for a platform that's supposed to change the face of portable gaming. What's even sadder is that those figures don't actually take into account the games that are worth buying. Out of the 30 games released as of press time, nine have received scores of four or above from OPM. That's not too bad until you consider that 14 games have scored a three or lower, tipping the balance in favor of mediocrity. But as far as potential PSP customers were concerned, it was easy to buy into what Hirai and third-party developers were saying before the PSP launched. It seemed like everything the PSP came in contact with would instantly turn into gaming gold. "These are not ports," Warren Wall, executive producer and head of EA's Team Fusion, told OPM back in January 2005. "That's not what we're after. We want something that's compelling and new, but we do have great franchises, and we want the experiences on PSP." While EA succeeded in delivering a somewhat original take on its Need for Speed franchise with Rivals, the other five of its six launch games essentially turned out to be either toned-down ports (thus qualifying them as "original") or just ports with a few extra minigames thrown into the mix.
But EA is hardly the only culprit. Sony's own first-party teams are just as guilty. Early versions of 989 Studios' PSP baseball game still featured the color-coded DualShock button icons shortly before it was released. Capcom's Darkstalkers is a port of a Dreamcast collection, just with a new survival mode and a few extras thrown in.
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix features four new levels and some added multiplayer options, but most of its content is from the PS2 version of the game. The list goes on, but the point is that most PSP games simply weren't built from the ground up; many publishers just wanted (or needed) to cash in on what would undoubtedly be an incredible hardware launch.
But it wasn't. At least, not as incredible as it was expected to be. American Technology Research conducted a survey of 150 retailers as a barometer of PSP sales during its launch period. Only 50 of the 150 retailers reported that their shipments of PSPs had sold out. Sony's own numbers reported that 602,000 units out of a million-unit shipment were sold, falling in line with results from the survey. Still, industry analysts were optimistic. "We think the PSP will be the dominant handheld gaming device in two years," says USB analyst Mike Wallace in his Video Game Industry Overview. Of course, anything can happen in two years, but if there continues to be a trickle of releases, let alone quality releases, then chances of the PSP assuming that role are pretty slim.
Indeed, it's almost impossible to predict what will happen, but if E3 is any indication, it might be a little rough going. There were plenty of PSP announcements at the show, but most of those games are either ports with the requisite minigame extras thrown in or are based on preexisting licenses or properties. As for actual physical software support for the PSP at the show, some considered it to be a little lacking. "What the f*** was up with the lack of games for PSP at E3?" wrote David Jaffe, director of God of War, in one of his blog entries. "When I get back, I have to chase down some answers. There has to be a s***load of games being made. Why were they not being shown?"
Then there's the question of the PlayStation 3 and how it will affect the PSP. With game budgets becoming an increasing strain on companies, how will a publisher or developer find enough money to develop a solid project for the PlayStation 3 and then turn around and do a PSP game, or vice versa? Many companies will have to choose one platform over the other in many cases, and in the circumstances that they don't, the potential for ports increases exponentially because there simply isn't enough time or money to do anything else. Could it be that developers are canceling PSP projects so they can go to work on the PS3 instead?
Or maybe that's not the right question to ask. Maybe developers are just losing faith. That certainly may be the case in Japan, where sales of Nintendo DS games have been faring better than sales of PSP games. Six Nintendo DS games placed in the top 20 in sales during the last week of May. Not a single PSP game managed to perform as well during the same time period. This contradicts what people predicted based on earlier trends, which showed sales of PSP hardware and software gaining steam and beating the DS by a significant margin in the early months of 2005.
Perhaps the lack of apparent support merely has to do with the PSP's current position in the market when publishers and developers look at the bottom line. There have reportedly been 5 million Nintendo DS units shipped worldwide, while 2.5 million PSPs have been shipped around the globe. However those numbers do neglect one very important factor: The DS has already launched in Europe, while the PSP European launch is scheduled for September. Though it's unlikely that 2.5 million units will be sold in Europe in any short period of time, it's still a pretty significant difference for publishers to take into consideration when pledging support.
At any rate, it almost seems like Sony was banking on the PSP's extra media-playing capabilities to lessen the impact of a potential gaming lull. "[The PSP user base] will expand quickly with support from motion picture studios and the music companies," Hirai said in an interview in OPM #91.
In fact, sales of UMD movies continue to do surprisingly well for a format that's less than a year old. At least two UMD movies have sold well over 100,000 units each, putting the total number of UMD movie sales possibly around the 500,000 mark (actual figures were not available as of press time). This also doesn't include the copies of Spider-Man 2 that were included in the first shipment of PSPs. In addition, studios are seemingly announcing more and more support every day for the PSP, seizing the opportunity to sell yet another version of a film or TV show. Still, it all comes down to this: With the drought of game releases, PSP owners are obviously looking for something else to do with their PSPs, and that something else seems to be watching movies or TV shows. Listening to music may not be as much of a factor, considering the popularity of the iPod, but it's still a feature that could distract the casual PSP owner from the lack of game releases.
However, there are a lot of PSP owners out there wondering why they forked out $250 for a gaming device that they've actually used more for watching movies or listening to music rather than playing games. Looks like it'll take a little more than promises and technology to really get handheld gaming out of the ghetto.
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The Power of Software
During the week of April 18, the Japanese market saw the release of two newly colored DS units, as well as the release of the pet simulator Nintendogs. That week, 96,191 Nintendo DS units were sold, compared to the PSP's 33,004 units. In fact, the DS sold more units in that week than the PSP, Xbox, PS2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and GBA SP combined.
