Developers reportedly briefed on PSP rental service at GDC
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 21st 2009 3:29PM
posted May 21st 2009 3:29PM
Well, if today's batch of rumors are true, it looks like the PSP could be in for quite a few changes beyond the seemingly inevitable hardware revision. As Develop is now reporting, in addition to those rumored music downloads, the PSP could soon also be getting a full-fledged game rental service, which would, of course, be one more means of making a UMD-less PSP a more appealing device (for game developers and consumers alike). Apparently, the service was first pitched to developers at GDC back in March, and was again mentioned in a consumer survey that just surfaced yesterday. What's more, while complete details are expectedly a bit light, the service would apparently charge PSP owners a monthly fee that would allow them to download "a fixed number of games" during their subscription period, although it's not clear if you'd also be able to simply rent 'em one at a time.
[Via Joystiq]
[Via Joystiq]
love it. much smarter than a demo.
A step in the right direction
becoming more of a fan of the PSP, might be my new toy with stuff like this.
Sounds interesting.
Now just go back in time and do this from the start....ok pumpkin?
Hopefully they'll come up with a subscription model similar to that of netflix/gamefly, except digital. I'd like something where I could rent maybe 3 games at a time, and just swap new games in for the three as long as I keep paying my subscription.
if this comes to fruition I'd Pay $15/month for access to 2 games at a time...
Sarcasm? Or no?
Yeah I recently got a survey from the PSP team to fill in about possible game rental services, and they were asking about pricing and so on, what would I find reasonable, the ideas were between renting a new/3month old/6 month old/12 month old game for 3/6/12 months for £5/10/30/60 and I had to say what was reasonable.
Rental is fine as long as I get to play more games a month than I would if I bought them. ie. It needs to take into account the fact that I could sell my games to recoup some of the money spent.
I have to say this is one of the better ideas to come out of the gaming industry since the arrival of DLC. This idea is going to do wonders for smaller gaming companies. The price has to be right though. I don't think that it will catch on unless they have a reasonable and tiered system. A Netflix style $7 month for 1 at a time, $12 for 2, $15 for 3, or $20 for 4 plus pre-release content ect., ect. would make a lot of sense. To be honest I think I would be totally on board with this concept. It would gain back my trust of hand held gaming to release quailty games of all genres and skill levels.
Id love to see a UMD less psp 4,000 that has a touch screen that happens to be OLED
And makes ice cream
also, dispenses cereal of choice. With milk.
that would be sweet
This could be very successful if they implement it right. There was also talks of Trophy support for PSP games, that could be a serious incentive for many core gamers to sign-up for this service.