Sony: PSP Minis are too often just rehashed iPhone titles

There's refreshingly open, and then there's simply acknowledging the unavoidable.

As such, it's no surprise to hear Sony acknowledging that PSP software sales - whether at retail or digitally - remain something of a thorn in the firm's side, with PSP Minis having done little to reverse the trend.

Indeed, SCEA's senior VP of publisher relations Rob Dyer has claimed that Minis suffer from a lack of creativity.

Damningly (and ironically considering the way Sony went out of its way to encourage iPhone developers to get involved), Dyer believes studios have done little to differentiate PSP Mini games from iPhone releases.

Dyer situation

"My concern with Minis always has been if you have a PSP or PS3, do you want to play small bite-sized games like that? I think the jury's still out," he told Gamasutra.

"My other concern with a lot of the Minis is they've been rehashed, recalibrated iPhone games that, when you look at and review it, you're like, 'Really? What are you doing differently here? Not much'."

It's Dyer's view that European developers have been PSP Minis' saving grace, expanding mobile properties so that they take advantage of the 'more sophisticated box' the platform represents when compared to smartphones.

"It's not like you have to spend a lot more money in order to get something that has a lot more impact for the platform," he added.

In Dyer's own admission, it's only in Japan where the PSP continues to enjoy strong software and hardware sales.

In addition, PSP and Minis have been hit by rampant piracy; although Sony is attempting to ease this.

"There's some code that you can embed that we've been helping developers implement in order to get people at least to see a 60-day shelf life before it gets hacked and shows up on BitTorrent," Dyer concluded.

[source: Gamasutra]