[Open Letters] To: Sony Re: PSP Go

To: Sony

Not as cool as a newer, better PSP would be...

Re: PSPGo

Ah, Sony.

When the PSP came out in 2005, I was one of the people who jumped right on it. I couldn’t help myself. The system was beautiful, and it had some really cool games that made my GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS games look like toys. To this day, I’ve been a PSP booster.

But the PSP Go baffles me. It’s a little smaller than the PSP-3000, and it looks kind of cool. But why would I ever need this device if I’ve already got a perfectly good PSP? It doesn’t do anything different. It has fewer features than the PSP I’ve already got, and it can’t play any of the games I already own. Its control scheme looks like it would cause my hands to cramp up. And, most important of all, it’s about $80 more than I’d spend if I replaced my original PSP-1000 system with one of those shiny new PSP-3000 models. $250, for a system with fewer features than the one I’ve already got? You have got to be kidding me, Sony.

Clearly, your marketing team was asleep during their marketing strategy classes, because the whole concept of the PSP Go is flawed. You want to repackage a 4-year-old handheld and sell it as geek chic. But in doing so, you’ve made it incredibly impractical to own. It’s a device that relies on digital downloads to play games… and yet it can only download on the wifi 802.11b standard, which ensures slow download speeds. Hrm. You’ve only made about 100 games available for download, and yet you’ve missed many obvious titles, such as Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Lumines and Metal Gear: Portable Ops. Hrm again. The games are being sold at full retail with no associated bonuses, which means that they’re going to be more expensive than their used counterparts. Hrm once more. Did you marketing team sleep their way through economics as well, somehow concluding that during a recession, people spend more money on items than they might otherwise?

What really galls me is that you put out a press release this week announcing that hardware sales for the PSP are up 300%. What that really means is that you’ve shipped out new hardware to retailers for the Christmas rush. It has nothing to do with what consumers are buying. You want people to think that the PSP Go is the must-have item right now. Maybe a few will fall for it. But I have yet to see a line for PSP Go hardware forming at any stores I’ve been in. The guys and girls at my local store are telling me that no one’s very interested. Why should they be? It’s like taking a McDonalds happy meal, putting it on a fancy plate, charging a dollar extra for the presentation and then slapping on an extra fee for the toy, soda and fries. The happy meal was fine the way it was. There’s no reason to try to make it into something better.

Speaking of which, where’s the PSP upgrade that consumers really want — the one with two analog sticks, four shoulder buttons, and switchable faceplates? The one that can use 802.11g and that has a kicking web browser. The one that has a battery that lasts more than a few hours, and that can play downloadable PS2 games? I’d pay $250 for that system, even if you stripped out the UMD drive and vulnerabilities to homebrew. And if I could use it to access PSN Home and to stream the videos on my PS3 over the Internet and I could hook it into my TV like I can with the PSP-3000, then yeah, I might even pay more.

All I can conclude is that you aren’t listening and don’t care what I have to say. That’s fine, Sony — you’ve always been too cool to let your customers push you around. But you’re going to pay the price for that as the years go by. In the 21st century, the most dangerous move you can make as a company is to treat your customers like they’re not important.

You’re lucky I love my PS3 so much. At least you’ve finally got yourselves straight where that console is concerned. Too bad you had to lose so much ground to Microsoft while you skimmed the market with a ridiculous price point and lackluster software. You might recover during this generation, but you’ve made yourself vulnerable, Sony… and it’s going to be hard for you to keep things up when the next generation of consoles is due and you’re still trying to pay off all the money you sunk into blowing the PS3 launch.

Good luck. You’re going to need it.

-Sean J. Jordan

[Sound-off] Sony’s PS3 — This Decade’s Nintendo 64

A stripped-down PS3? No thanks.

I’m in the market for a Playstation 3 now that the prices are dropping, and I’ve sold off a lot of my old consoles (which I never use anymore anyhow) so I can buy one. More than once, I’ve been asked, “so, are you going to get the Slim?” (That is, for those who don’t know, the new, smaller, more energy-efficient model that Sony is replacing the old models with.)

But the thing is… the PS3 Slim is actually a lot LESS of a value than the earlier models. The original 60GB launch system (launched in 2006, at $600) had way more features than the current models do. It had four USB ports, a bunch of memory card readers, backwards compatibility with PS1 and PS2 games and the ability to install Linux on the system without needing any modifications. Pretty cool, right? But as the system has evolved, it’s lost two USB ports, lost its backwards compatibility, lost its memory card readers, and finally, with the Slim, lost its ability to run Linux. All of this has been in the name of cost-cutting, but the truth of the matter is that Sony is actually reducing features in order to re-tighten their control on their hardware. They wanted the PS3 to be the “home computer system”. Now, they’re back to marketing it as a game console.

And honestly, it’s a really peculiar situation, because it shows that Sony really doesn’t get marketing at all. Instead of adding features to later models, as pretty much any electronics manufacturer would, Sony has continued to strip down and limit the PS3. They’ve even stopped pushing the Blu-Ray capabilities in favor of pushing the fact that it plays games slightly better than the Xbox 360. Sony has basically regressed to being a competitor in an old category rather than trying to hold on to the new territory it was delving into. I think they’re going to recover now that they’ve priced the PS3 appropriately and started developing their games library, but I think the PS3 is always going to be remembered as a mediocre console, not as the powerhouse it should be.

Oddly enough, Sony’s probably is not too different from Nintendo’s problem in the late 1990s. Nintendo was riding a huge wave of success from the SNES, which is, for my money, the best home console system ever made. Sega had been nipping at their heels with the Sega Genesis and the upcoming Saturn, and Sony was getting ready to launch its PlayStation, which came out of a failed partnership between Sony and Nintendo that was supposed to result in a CD-ROM attachment for the SNES. CD-ROM wasn’t quite ready for prime time (the discs loaded slowly, and analog sticks needed for 3D games were still not a standard feature on controllers), so Nintendo decided to launch another cartridge-based system, first named the “Ultra 64,” and then later, the “Nintendo 64.”

I remember the first year the Nintendo 64 came out — it was a disaster. There were only about 12 games available, and all of them were garbage except for Super Mario 64. The N64 didn’t come with all the extras (games, 2 controllers, zappers, etc) that the older consoles had; it was just a system and a single controller. And that controller — the weird, trident-shaped design that never quite felt comfortable in your hand, with an analog stick that was easy to break, and four tiny yellow buttons that served little practical purpose — was one of the first things that was clearly wrong with the N64. Nintendo, in its zeal to be different, had done something weird and awkward. And what’s more, it set the stage for something that continues to be true of Nintendo consoles — third party games tended to be terrible on the N64. If you ask people which N64 games they liked or remembered, they’re bound to cite a game made by Nintendo or by Rare (who at the time was a partner of Nintendo).

Apparently, the console was very hard to program for due to limited storage and memory. 3D objects were easy for the system to render, but there was little memory available for textures. Full-motion video and voice clips took up too much space, making the system a poor choice for RPGs. The control scheme was not really appropriate for fighting games, and the system did 2D really badly. Essentially, the N64 was a victim of its own ambition; it was trying to be a 3D game console before 3D game consoles were ready for prime time. I’d still rate it as Nintendo’s weakest console system, despite the fact that it sold much better than the Gamecube. But the Gamecube was superior in every way, and the reason it didn’t do as well was because people were soured by the N64 and Nintendo’s stubborn refusal to give them the sorts of experiences they could get on the PS2 and Xbox. Nintendo had developed a “kiddie” image – its products were little more than toys in the eyes of gamers. And commercials like this one didn’t help to shed that:

So, I made the statement that Sony’s PS3 is very similar to the N64. But on the surface, that doesn’t appear to be correct. Sony launched a console that was far more powerful (and capable!) than the N64, and it geared itself towards older gamers, not younger ones. Sony lacks the power of Nintendo for making first-party games, but it has some great third-party support. The controllers are comfortable and standard, and the system itself is pretty impressive, even in its stripped-down state. So how, you might wonder, can I draw a comparison?

It’s all in the marketing. Both Sony and Nintendo were riding the wave of two very successful consoles, and both decided that it was time to focus on the product, not the customer. Nintendo did it by launching a system that underperformed at traditional console functions and that didn’t do its new functions very well. Sony did it by launching a system that was intended to be used as something other than a console and then saying, nonchalantly, “oh, it plays games, too.” Both Nintendo and Sony supported their systems with ridiculous marketing strategies that tried to communicate technology over functionality, and both launched their consoles expecting people to buy on brand name alone.

The Nintendo 64 is actually remembered as a better system than it was because Nintendo was able to support it with some great games down the road. That helped to take the sting out somewhat to those who’d bought the system hoping for the same level of fun they’d enjoyed with the SNES. I’m actually not sure if Sony is going to be able to pull that off with the PS3; Sony’s never been good at first-party software, and most of its best first-party titles have been aimed at a specific niche. I’m guessing what takes the sting out of the PS3 is its ability to play Blu-Ray and its free online service… but I’m not sure that these features are as useful to the majority of gamers as Sony seems to think.

So, we’re left with a console cycle where Sony is going to take a bath. The early adopters have the system; the lower price point means that the early majority will start picking the system up. But they’re going to be disappointed when they realize they’ve got a system that’s not as good as the one they could have bought a few years back, and they’re going to find that the Xbox 360 actually has the better software library right now. The only way Sony is going to be able to turn this into a victory is if they can communicate the cool of the PS3 — and though Sony’s very good at being “cool,” I think they’ve given up too much ground this generation. If Microsoft’s third Xbox or Nintendo’s next console are in any way impressive, it’s likely that Sony’s going to really get hurt in the next cycle of consoles (which should begin in 2011 or 2012).

How did Nintendo come back? By re-inventing itself and focusing on The Marketing Concept with the Wii. They’ve been wildly successful because they figured out how to talk to gamers again and deliver what casual gamers wanted. Sony’s going to have to go through its own reinvention. I wish them luck.

[Technology Tuesday] The Cry of the Consumer For Fewer Features

Laptops would be so much easier for novices to use if they weren't developed to do so much!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have a Blackberry Storm, and I love it — this little device can do so many things that I’m finding myself using my laptop less and less for routine tasks like checking email or goofing off on Facebook, and finding myself anchoring my laptop to a desk more frequently.

Aside from those two devices, I have a PSP that I’ve loaded custom firmware onto, giving me a dedicated entertainment platform that can play so many games that I really have no need for the vast array of video game equipment I have. That means that between three pieces of hardware, I can have more functions than I know what to do with — and every week, I’m finding a new and novel use for one of them.

In the tech industry, one of the big buzzwords over the last ten years has been “convergence” — the idea that as technology evolves, there’s going to be less of a need for multiple devices and that more and more emphasis will be placed on using a single device for all of our technological needs. Right now, it appears that that device is going to be the cellular phone, though it’s possible that once long-distance wi-fi towers are a standard, VOIP will replace cellular technology entirely. In another decade, wireless networking will probably be everywhere, at a price that puts today’s rates to shame. And we’ll all be using a small portable device to take advantage of it instead of the bulky notebook computers we lug around today.

But there’s a downside to technology — the tendency to add new features to products that are already doing a pretty good job. It’s not enough to put out a nice product and leave it alone anymore — every new model has to include some improvement over the past model, even if it doesn’t make sense. We’re rapidly approaching a time when the cry of the consumer is not going to be for more, but for less. And it could happen sooner than you’d think…
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[Video Game Wednesday] Final Fantasy VII – The Most Overrated Game of All Time?

Cloud wielding his buster sword.

A friend recently talked me into picking up Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for my Sony PSP. For those who don’t know, Crisis Core is the prequel to the game for the original Playstation, Final Fantasy VII, which bears the distinction of being one of the first Japanese role-playing game that many gamers ever played. As such, FF VII has achieved a sort of legendary status among gamers as being one of the best games ever made. There are even a significant number of people who know everything about the game – its story, its characters, its places, its goofy moments — without actually having played it.

As it turns out, Crisis Core is pretty good, and I’d say it’s one of the better games I’ve seen on the PSP. But playing through it has reminded me about my mixed feelings towards FF VII, which is a good game, and maybe even a great game, but surely one of the most overrated games of all time.

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