More new PSP franchises coming soon, promises Sony
Franchises, not new IPs or ports
Sony is continuing its long overdue enthusiasm for the PSP in a new interview in which SCEA’s director of hardware marketing, John Koller, has spoken about the company’s focus on new software, rather than hardware (won’t that put him out of a job?)
“There's a lot of software coming. We're really focused on software, and I don't think that's a big surprise given that it's going to be the best software year the PSP has ever had, there's no doubt,” says Koller, somewhat disjointedly.
A host of hot franchises were announced by Sony recently, including Assassin’s Creed, LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm and Rock Band Unplugged, while a bold new move is to be taken in the US to release the highly anticipated sequel Patapon 2 as a digital download only.
“We're going to be fairly democratic and open [about digital content], and if consumers want digital they can wake up and download it, if they want UMD they can go to retail for it. We want to provide that content opportunity,” Koller tells GamesIndustry.biz.
It’s great to see Sony finally coming around to making real, tangible use of the PSP’s excellent connectivity, and opening its eyes (wide) to the fact that consumers want direct digital access to software.
He does go on to say that PSP gamers apparently don’t want new IPs, but bigger franchises on the platform, which isn’t a concept that’s so easy to get onboard with.
Digital downloads promise users access to less mainstream, and more experimental titles (just look what World of Goo did for WiiWare, and Zen Bound for the iPhone), but if Sony’s interest is in expanding big franchises, the indie developer isn’t going to find much elbow room in the PSP downloads arena.
He does offer a glimmer of hope when he explains that Sony understands PSP users also don’t want ports, and remains quite realistic about where Sony has gone wrong with the PSP and openly admits it’s working hard to rectify those errors.
“We went to developers and said; ‘Large franchises, keep it unique and please market the game’. We wanted to make sure that message got across. So it was less a reaction to DSi and iPhone as it was to us looking at our line-ups and saying ‘we need to do a better job here’.
"The fruits of the labour is pouring out this year (sic), and we've been talking about it a lot, but we've only mentioned about the first half of the line-up. There's another half to maybe three quarters that we're going to be announcing in the months leading up to E3. There's a lot of big franchises to come.”
He wouldn’t budge on PSP 2 news, though.
