Sony: PSP Yet to See "Day In The Sun"

According to Sony Computer Entertainment Australia's managing director, Michael Ephraim, the PSP has not yet hit its glory days.

According to Ephraim, it's in its interactions with other devices that the PSP will really shine. "We still think PSP hasn't had its day in the sun yet because its all about interoperability", said Ephraim in an interview.

"People know about PlayTV coming out, that will give PSP another functionality that you can watch your TV on the go", he went on. "You can download games from the network to take on the road with you. There's even the announcement from CES that you can download movies from Blu-ray. PSP is holding its own in a different category to DS. DS has been very successful, but probably younger and is not technology laden."

The PSP's non-gaming functionality has had something of a boost recently. The most recent advance was the addition of Skype to the Slim & Lite, which found its way onto the handheld in last week's firmware update.

Ephraim also had a message for gamers lusting after a PS3 with a 120GB hard drive. He wouldn't comment on whether it's on the way, instead saying, "we've done it so you can upgrade the hard drive. It's non-proprietary, and you do have external hard drives. So whether we deliver that or whether retailers start offering them... With PlayTV, yes you will need more storage, and retailers will probably accommodate those needs for consumers... If we do it, fine, but if we don't do it, the consumer will still have choice."

The issue of pre-owned game sales hurting publishers also cropped up. "It is a major industry issue and you can look at it in two ways", he said. "You can look at it that trade-in games does generate more dollars for the consumer to come back and spend on new games, but clearly it takes away the back catalogue opportunity for publishers. They are repeatedly selling product two, maybe three, four, five times and we're not getting any revenue for it.

"I have my opinion, I think there will be varying opinions from everyone. But everyone will say back catalogue is being hurt by trade-in games. I don't know if there's a solution."

SPOnG's not entirely convinced that Sony doesn't have a solution for its back catalogue sales being hurt. Sony does in fact have technology that would make the use of used software impossible on un-modified consoles.

For that matter, it looks like the platform holder may be working on bringing PS2 titles to the PS3 in the form of downloads at what would no doubt carry a competitive price. Given that Sony's favoured version of the PS3 doesn't feature backwards compatibility, selling PS2 games as downloads would allow publishers to make good use of their Sony back catalogues.

^{Source: The Age}