Fils-Aime asks: what's the benefit of PSPgo?

NewsPosted 12/10/2009 - 11:04am GMT+1

Believes Sony may have a 'fundamental concept problem'.

Sony's PSPgo hasn't been greeted with the warmest of welcomes, and now Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has jumped on the new handheld's back.

Fills told The Washington Post he believes the device may have a "fundamental concept problem in terms of 'Who's it for?' and 'What's the benefit?'"

He added: "I have the utmost respect for all our competitors, but it's interesting to try and answer the consumer question of 'What's in it for me?' in that product."

Do you agree with Reggie? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

New stuff to check out

View all 20 Comments

Comments

To add your comment, please login or register

Highest Rated Comment

pblive

Not really, I think that Sony offered UMD movies and movies on Memory stick together and only one was going to win out. It was obvious what would happen to UMD when Sony started selling games on the PSP store and allowing for movies to be easily stored on PSP from your DVDs or hard drive via their free Media Go software.

At the same time, people are still picking up a PSP3000 because it's still easy to get cheap second hand UMD discs.

The main problems with the PSPGO! are not the actual machine but the price point and the inability for Sony to appease retailers. What they needed to do was sell them for £199 and to show high street stores that they could sell PSN cards, plus to create game boxes with codes in them for downloading games, allowing stores to stock a physical box for a downloadable game.

Posted 11:49 on 12 October 2009

User Comments

pblive

Indeed, Sony should have embraced the Memory Stick from the start and released games on 1GB memory sticks, that would have been pretty cool.

The PSP GO! as a piece of kit is ok, but it's the price point, marketing, lack of thought for retailers and Sony's seemingly inability to do the same advertising job as they did for the PS1 and PS2 which has really hurt it.

For the DSi I really would like to see more download games on the store. Asphalt 4 is so much better than their cartridge releases and shows that more full games should be downloadable on the DS Shop.

And I think Karlius is right, we won't get retail releases of DSi only games, the future for these is through the DSi shopping channel, we've already seen a Mario exclusive game for the DSi on this (new march of the minis sequel)

Posted 10:08 on 13 October 2009

Karlius @ CheekyLee

We may see DSi only games but they won't be mainstream games such as mario or mario kart etc as this would alienate their biggest target audience. The DSi wasn't the same leap that DS to DS Lite was in my opinion.

PSP Go i agree with Bev would have been better spending the cash on the second PSP. Not the walkman brand as this has never gone away it has been tried to be revitalised via mobile phones and mp3 players and wasn't successful. Downloadable games are a good idea when UMD is such a rubbish backward idea for a portable device. Portable Spinning disks didn't work for Mini Disc and the UMD adaptation failed. Sony should have released games via their memory card media from the very start.

Quote:

Originally Posted by renegade

Fils-Aime, what is the point in you?

Fils-Aime who is he? He's the guy who managed to turn around Nintendo's fortunes in North America obviously gaining massive success with the Wii, DS Lite and DS Lite. So whats the point in Reggie? One of the most successful game company CEO's in gaming history so think he has a right to comment!

Posted 08:49 on 13 October 2009

CheekyLee @ Mr_Ninjutsu

The DSi doesn't just add a camera, it upgrades to twice the processor speed and four times the internal memory, as well as improving the wifi options. Pretty soon, we will start to see DSi only games.

Posted 08:01 on 13 October 2009

JediKnight

I agree with Regie. I have a PSP and love it. However, right now it is the Go is not for me, based on the price point and the games that I own.

When the price becomes lower than an Xbox 360 and Wii, I might take another look.

Posted 01:02 on 13 October 2009

Mr_Ninjutsu @ Stegosaurus-Guy-II

You actually have a point. Unless the DSi actually improved performance graphically or in HDD then there is nothing new really. As the camera apps were pretty pants.

Posted 18:29 on 12 October 2009

Stegosaurus-Guy-II

Reggie is right. Sony should put cameras all over the PSP and call it the PSi instead of trying something new.

Posted 18:22 on 12 October 2009

El-Dev

Download only will happen at some point in future console generations but now isn't the right time. Seen one in Game last week, they do look slick but not £250 worth of slick. If they were the same price as a normal PSP or even slightly dearer I'd consider it, but I think I'll just get a PSP3000.

Posted 18:19 on 12 October 2009

rbevanx

I think Sony would have been better off investing in the PSP 2 or relaunch the Walkman brand.
Because I have always felt this was a pointless and expensive move by Sony.

Posted 18:16 on 12 October 2009

CheekyLee

Reggie has a point. The average consumer is going to see that the more expensive model does not even do everything the older one does, and decide to save money. Sony still seem to be unable to accept that the world won't just hand over their ridiculous asking prices without a good reason to.

Posted 16:57 on 12 October 2009

Wido @ pblive

How much are 16GB Pro Duos going for? Whenever they get a price drop then its more beneficial for the customer to have more money in the back pocket and buy some content of the PSN Store...

If that happens people would end up buying a cheaper model of the PSP so the PSPGo would drop in price surely because of sales?

Posted 16:36 on 12 October 2009

Mr_Ninjutsu

UMD films were a no-go. I remember in HMV when i was 16 asking this guy with tourettes to purchase 28 Days Later with my money. The funniest thing i had seen.

Posted 15:53 on 12 October 2009

renegade

Fils-Aime, what is the point in you?

yeh pointless questions are pointless :D

Posted 14:47 on 12 October 2009

pblive

no problem. Sounds about right, the memory stick uses far less power (though you can get bigger batteries as well, something else you can't do with the Go!).

The freeware PSP Video 9 is great for encoding anything (including DVDs straight from source) and even Sony's free Media Go! works, albeit slower.

Posted 14:43 on 12 October 2009

Karlius

Sorry PB Misinterpreted your response. Whole heartedly agree and appologise for being an idiot. The worst thing with UMD was if you actually tried to plat two movies back to back the constant spinning would mean your PSP battery would give up halfway through. I know bevan used to watch films on his via USB and as you stated was a much better way. But he did have to re-encode all his vids for the PSP. Think he could get 3 films shown without the movivng parts?

Posted 13:42 on 12 October 2009

pblive @ Wido

This is true, but the price point is the problem.

With more people finding out that the original PSPs (1000-3000) can also save everything to Memory Sticks and run it like a PSP GO! then they will go for the cheaper option. The only thing swaying the move to a GO! is the styling and the 16GB built in.

I'm hoping that the 16GB Pro Duos come down a lot so my PSP3000 can have just one card in!

Posted 12:11 on 12 October 2009

Show Older Comments