Eight leading developers offer their view on four key issues surrounding Sony’s new handheld
The development community has spoken.
Today Develop has published in full its panel discussion on Sony’s new handheld, the PSP Go, with eight leading developers offering their views and insight on the device.
Examining key aspects of the new handheld – from hardware design to its digital distribution plans – the panel’s response is largely positive.
Veteran game consultant David Perry claimed that digital distribution is “absolutely the way to go” and “opens up concepts like free-to-play and micro-transactions based on a single Sony currency.”
Meanwhile, Blitz Games’ CTO Andrew Oliver proclaimed that “the iPod has demonstrated that, given a nice small device and a good interface and easy buying process, people are happy to download content.”
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The panel was unanimous in applauding the PSP’s redesign; Doublesix Studio Head James Brooksby said that “the [PSP Go’s] sliding movement that hides the controls is a great move and makes the whole package an object of desire”.
The panel was also largely encouraged that the new device can stimulate industry growth.
“The PSP Go can enable the industry to sell games cheaper - while not dropping quality,” said Andrew Oliver. “Publishers and developers can still make the same money per unit which is good for the industry and consumer. It’s said there will be a lot more casual games on the system because of the reduced cost, which makes sense for a portable console and hopefully we’ll see some great innovative titles. I certainly hope the strategy works.”
The full panel discussion can be found here.
The big issue seen on the iPhone is that cost expectations have plummeted, a price war caused by being able to create cheap games easily means iPhone owners consider more than 59p/99c as expensive! If that hits the psp then that's a very bad thing, eventually on the iPhone people won't be able to risk decent development budgets because the price point makes a ROI near impossible, Sony watch and learn, don't allow that to happen!
DBV makes a great point, we all hate having to fork out so much for games but in this case paying too little would mean we get no games in the end.
Games are definitely not in danger of becoming as cheap as they are on the iphone! Games will be cheaper b/c they don't have to go through retail... but as the developer stated, they still intend to make the same amount of money for devs/publishers... the consumer just gets to enjoy the savings incurred by not having to go through retail.
The PSP Go is going to be a great move for both the industry & gamers alike! I can't wait to get one!
I don't know way people put "IPhone Vs PSP Go"? one is a phone that does what every phone does an notthing new and PSP Go is doing something new for the hand held systems.
So why do people think IPhone will beat PSP Go if their not even in the same level of hardware?
@Shendow
Actually up until rescently the Iphone hasn't even been able to do things normal phones can (video recording/picture messages etc.) and in some countries still cant (mainly service providers fault now though), but i do agree with you that the two are not directly comparable as the Iphone still has to prove itself as a gaming handhold (not only casual games proper in depth ones as well IFF people would pay for them).
