Ten-year life cycle planned for PSP
But expect the handheld to look a lot different then than it does now
PSP's senior marketing manager John Koller seems to be popping up all over the place this week, talking about the console that launched three years ago in North America. Today, he's been chatting to IGN and the most interesting morsel of information he has shared is the planned life cycle of PSP. Which is ten years according to the Sony man.
"We look at it just like our console business being a ten-year cycle, but we do see iterations as we go along to really adjust to the market. What we've done is the 2000 series adjusted to the market in terms of making it more portable. What we're seeing now, at least in the near- to mid-term, is going to be firmware updates that add features and other functions that the consumer's asked for."
"We obviously had the 1000, we have the 2000, so the PSP as it was first launched in March 2005 isn't going to the be the PSP that it ends up as in ten years, but it will still be a very strong portable gaming device that is centred in gaming and has a lot of multi-functional features."
Ten years is an ambitious target for any console – home consoles have normally averaged around six years before a replacement has come along. That said, Nintendo's original Game Boy was with us (in various guises) for ten years before the Game Boy Advance took the helm.
With Sony having already demonstrated with the release of the PSP-2000 (aka Slim & Lite), a wealth of firmware updates offering everything from internet radio to phone calls and add-ons such as GPS, that it's more than possible to improve features without releasing a whole new bit of hardware it's probably not an unrealistic target, though.
Koller also spoke of the reportedly poor attach rate of software to hardware sales for PSP, saying that the percentage of customers using the console for game playing has hovered at around 70 per cent since launch. He says 'franchise umbrellas' (there's a nice bit of marketing lingo for you) have proven most successful on the console – so that's games such as God of War: Chains of Olympus, SOCOM and Daxter which are exclusive handheld spin-offs of big name home console franchises.
"We've noticed that about one in two, about 50 per cent of consumers, are using the PSP at home. And if they are then (…) they don't want to buy the same console game that they play on a handheld. So, to avoid that kind of competitive play, a lot of developers and publishers are starting to say, 'All right, maybe it's time we start making games that are unique to that system under a strong umbrella.'"
So Sony sees the future of PSP gaming to potentially be PSP exclusive versions of games like Gran Turismo and Resistance. Fair enough; we just hope that's not at the expense of the next Patapon and LocoRoco. Anyway, at least you don't have to worry your PSP is going to become obsolete any time soon – you've probably got another seven years to get use out of that GPS and Skype headset. Phew.
