PSP Go refused by game retailer as Blockbuster fiddles
By Thomas Ricker 
posted September 16th 2009 8:21AM
posted September 16th 2009 8:21AM
Do you run a brick-and-mortar store that primarily sells media? Yeah? Then lean in real close, we've got a little trend that you may have overlooked. The physical media you carry -- be it films, music, or games -- is going digital and moving on-line for direct-to-consumer downloads. Still, Dutch gaming-house Nedgame has a statement on its website saying it will not be selling the UMD-less PSP Go. It lists six reasons framed in a way that makes them sound like they're fighting for the rights of the consumer. However, as a seller of gaming media that boasts two new store openings on its home page, the primary beef likely stems from the shop's inability to sell physical media to the download-only PSP Go. Maybe a search on the tag Blockbuster could help with expansion planning?[Via GamesIndustry.biz]
They can try and stall all they want. What it boils down to is they wont even get the little money off of that they would have gotten from selling it. Companies that do things like this wont be around after 10 years when we get towards more digital only systems.....
I think they would rather earn 50 bucks selling 5 UMD games to a guy who bought a 3000 from them then 10 buck selling a single PSP Go and never seeing the costumer again...
yea it all comes down to PROFIT. The PSP Go! equals 0% margin to most B&M retailers. Once they've purchased the system, Blockbuster, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc earn no more profit from the customer outside of accessories and replacement parts. Sony is simply pushing forward into the future.
And when the day comes that ALL media (movies, music, games, books, software, etc) has moved to digital, ALL retail stores will have problems with selling the hardware that the systems run on for the same reason that blockbuster is facing now. (And I believe we're not too far away from this kind of reality)
sure they would rather make more money off of repeat customers via UMD....fact is UMD wont be there forever(PSP2 maybe)....so when Sony DOES Phase it out what will they do then?? Not Carry the PSP2 at ALL and make NO money?? thats just dumb and lines them up destined to fail....I've said it before and I'll say it again....stores that make KILLINGS off of Resell of games & movies will be dead in a matter of years....and they will have no one to blame but themselves
I mean look at their reasons.....
- Sharply higher retail price, 249 euro instead of 169 euros.
- Only have to download games via Sony, this set (higher) prices and less choice. (Less Choice for now, but yes prices are higher)
- No possibility to swap games and / or sell. (Sorry but I dont care for trading or selling my games anyways)
- Never a cheap game scoring from budgetbak.(dunno what that is...lol)
- No possibility to import games.(ummm you can get games from signing up from Different PSN accounts, as long as they arent region locked)
- When selling the device your 'virtually' purchased games are almost worthless. (I'm not going to Sell my Handheld, and if I did it would be to get another one of which I can play my games on that one)
Instead of getting mad at Sony for going without UMD's they should have negotiated a Kiosk to be placed in the store to download the games so they could still get profit that way.
But I guess the people up top in this corporation aren't thinking...
I'm wondering if Sony has plans for those Gaming Kiosks....if they dont they should, I mean hell they have PS3 display units in places like Gamestop & Walmart...it can't be too hard to set up said PS3 to be set to purchase things off the PS Store and then port them over to the PSPGo via USB or Bluetooth...and give the company running the kiosk 5-10% of all sales generated there
Why would Sony cut stores in? Sony will just tell folks to walk across the street to free wi-fi to download...
That's the whole problem... there's no loyalty from SONY to the retailers. Like other posters said, hardware is a $10 profit "loss leader" .. except there's no revenue stream for the RETAILER to benefit from later. No game release day hype with tie-ins like books and accessories... all the sales and retail markup goes directly to SONY...Sony is competing directly with the retailer to sell games.
I actually hope that they have kiosks. I'm a college student, so the school's wifi has a browser based log in system, which is incompatible with the PSP and DS, so downloading games for the PSP Go will be a no-go for me while I'm at school. So unless I can download games on my PC and then transfer them over to the PSP Go or they have PSP Go kiosks, the PSP Go is pretty much just a shiny brick until I go home.
I agree with the retailer completely. The Go is horrible for consumers, and I hope PSP2 is nothing like it.
".(ummm you can get games from signing up from Different PSN accounts, as long as they arent region locked)"
No, you can't import. PSP is a 1 PSN account device.
I havent tried to sign into any other account on my PSP...but I thought U could simply change the login...the games I have gotten for my PSP from other stores I got either from the MediaGo software or my PS3
I actually think the points are fairly legitimate. One of the issues with digital distribution is that while there's actually massive cost savings in the distribution chain the prices aren't really any cheaper because
1) There's no competition-you have one place to buy it from.
2) You can't resell your digital copy. In the old way when you got done with your game you could sell it to your buddy for a few bucks or trade it in somewhere. So if you finally got sick of Counter-Strike you could give your Half-Life CD to your buddy.
Get sick of that copy of HL2 you bought on Steam and well...it's locked to your account and all the other games you also bought so unless you're insane enough to make a new Steam account for every game.
3) You can't buy used versions of the game, not at the store, not on ebay, not at a garage sale...lowering competition and keeping the prices high.
Digital distribution would be great if there was actually competition (like when video game stores have sales on launch day) but without competition prices will become higher. Which is why the Orange Box is still $29.99 on Steam but the version that's resellable (the Xbox 360 disc version) is ~$10 on ebay (the PC versions are of coursed locked to you). And even if you wanted to buy it new the full price is $19.99 even though there's an Xbox 360 licensing fee, a retail store, and a lot of shipping involved.
I love the convenience as much as the next person but am definitely not a fan of the lack of competition and DRM-laden killing of resales.
Orange Box on Steam goes on Sale like every month for half price....but the MAIN reason the PS3 and 360 version have gotten that cheap is because the community is DEAD on them...they DONT get the updates the PC version does...as for reselling PC games...ummm Aren't damn near all big games DRM'd anyways?? How would everyone fell if Devs started DRM'ing Console games because they aren't making money from the countless resales?? Thats part of the main reason they are going to start leaning heavily towards digital distribution is because companies like Gamestop make BILLIONS off of used game sells cutting out the Game studios and costing them money....
Your name is longer than John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt's, not nearly as cool.
Yea, nobody really cares about his gamer tags, its not like we would play him, only mabye harass him then de-friend him :)
if thats in reference to me then like I have said many times b4...Its not FOR you...its for the people on Joystiq...which is a sister site of Engadget...
dont likeit? I don't care....
@ DanielT - lol you're an idiot. Why do you care so much about his name? Are you woman trapped in a man's body having the urge to complain about things that don't concern you? Maybe your name should be DanielA.
@ ProfessorKaos - If "nobody really cares about his gamer tags" then why would you put all that effort to add him and "harass him then de-friend him." .................... 'SMRT'
I fail to understand what Blockbuster has to do with this news post except that you want to take another jab at a dying company.
Pretty pitiful really.
The point is that Blockbuster is moving to online delivery; in theory, Nedgame might be able to look to them for ideas. (In practice, no, they can't, if the PSP Go will only download from Sony.)
I agree with the retailers comments. How is one to resell or rent/borrow a virtual game?
The key here would be selling digital credits\point cards that buy product from the PSPGO Store.
Since kids will always rule in the portable gaming market, not all of them will have access to a credit card to pay for the game downloads, so there will always be a tangible means of getting media.
Rentals can be done with downloads, if the company in question wants to implement it. Even loaning is possible. The question is, does Sony have a reason to implement them?
It appears they my have done so:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/10/psp-firmware-6-00-goes-live-hints-at-game-rentals/
This company is more angry they don't get a cut of the rentals.
@ushak
points cards are a low profit margin too.
uShak
Points dont account for people who dont have internet, with a psp 3000 or any other version besides go you can go to a store and buy the game and load it right after you hit the door.
if you dont have internet or can not access the internet at the time your sol. I fully support the kiosk idea that was stated above its a way for people to buy games that dont have internet or arent near a place where they have access to internet.
still its no use since amazons gonna sell it with no holding back
how cool are Sony
Cooler than a polar bear toe nail. Oh hell, their he go again...
*there*
I'm from The Hague, never heard of Nedgame. But their "6 reasons" do make sense, both for consumers and retailers.
-Higher consumer price (249 euro vs 169 euro)
-Games only downloadable from Sony (thus higher price and less choice)
-No possibility of trading of selling games
-Never buying cheap games or budget games to lose stock
-No possibility playing import games
-When selling the device the "virtual" games will be almost worthless
I'm sticking with my PSP2000
I hate it for people that like to "trade" games 10 years from now....as I'm fairly certain physical media for games will be damn near gone
Trading games will forever stay. Once someone's memory stick frys and all their games disappear to thin air, they'll wish they bought the UMD.
I am borrowing a few Dreamcast games from a co-worker. This won't be possible in 10 years with the PSP Go.
Gamestop is big business. People will continue to trade 5 games to get a new release for cheap/ free. Gamestop isn't going to start trading downloads.
Vinyl records are becoming more popular even with iTunes being in business for 4.5 years now. CDs, DVDs, and blu-ray are still around.
Long live physical media!
I have lived in the Netherlands for about a year now (Breda) and the videogame market here relies heavily on imports and used game sales. New games are really expensive (average big title PS3 game is around 69 euros on release date) and many titles just never show up here so you have to get them from the UK or US.
You Think that MS of ALL companies will STAY with Physical media?? Point is the PSPGo is NOT the only game system that is digital.....I mean its the only major one that is SOLELY that way but thats just as of now...sorry dude.... once they put a 1TB HDD in a Game system you will REALIZE that Digital Distribution is here to stay....Gamestop wont be around come 2020...at least not in the way they are now
@ EM1
Why do these topics always attract people like you? When your memory card fries/breaks you download your games again for free or (if you own a pc) resync them from there.
Also if you want to lend your buddy a game, each purchase from PSN can live on five devices simultaneously so in fact you can lend your digital games and keep playing them, which your physical game can never do.
Don't write rants If you don't know anything about the topic.
@yomachaser - really? is that how it works? why don't you try that with Sonic Stage, Sony's music download store ... oh, wait, right -- it went out of business! Now, the DRM servers are down so the music you bought can't be moved to any new players and you can't re-download anything you bought.
If you honestly believe a big company can't suddenly go out of business or shut down, you haven't been paying attention the last few years. Or, what if the company just decides not to host the game you bought anymore - do you have any recourse? Nope.
So, don't totally cast aside those concerns just because you're naive.
nedgames is based in Dordrecht;) And their big profits come from ps2 and original xbox games, I didn't expect them to sell the Go in the first place.
No physical media, no PSPGo for me. I know downloads are the "future" but I just can't stand the fact that I can't hold a game I bought. I love having my game collection on shelves that I can display and pick up.
Just look at the music industry. Physical games will probably be a niche just like vinyl and such, the only difference is that you need the latest hardware to play the latest games so the manufactures can stop putting in drives (like the Go).
I totally agree with the PSPGo Hating. I just sold my PS3 and I had purchased two PSN Games and Gran Turismo. Maybe I could have found a way to transfer them, but I didn't feel safe since all of my information was linked to it. That means I lost a potential $50.
I just think that if we are going to have direct-to-consumer downloads, there should still be a way to sell the games.
You are delirious if you think you could have gotten $50 GT prologue.
You can download your content as many times as you like on up to 5 PS3s.
So nobody liked the UMD drive, but nobody likes the hard-driveness that everyone was buying flash media for anyway:? Hmm.
Only morons who had no clue of how games were made, hated UMD
The reason I won't switch is because I can't get money back on used games. It's half the reason I buy them at Gamestop.
I don't like the trend myself. I prefer real media for games. I like to know I own the physical copy. Some will say that it's the same, but it's not. I will tell you an experience I have on the playstation network as an example of why I don't like DLC.
I got a notification saying that I bought "the last guy" which was 2 bucks I believe. The thing is, I didn't buy the game. Someone hacked into my account and download it. This game is definitely not on my machine. I called up Sony, you get their first level people and they're asshole about it, saying that I or someone else did it or it wouldn't be charged. Well hell I know for a fact I don't have the game that's good enough of evidence for me. So I ask to talk to higher ups. They investigate and determine that I didn't download it on my machine. The thing was, they won't refund my money back, they wouldn't give me credit back. They said that I must have let someone my use my ID and password to download the game. Why the hell I would do that??? Sony said that I could dispute the charges to get my money back but while I'm in dispute, my psn account would be disabled. If that happens I wouldn't be able to use that anymore and anything associated with that ID is gone with it. I wouldn't be able to download previous games that I purchased with that ID either. If the machine broke, I would have lost all previous downloaded games and cannot download it again.
My thought was, hell it's 2 bucks, I'm not going to have all those inconvenience disputing for a measly 2 bucks. So I did not dispute. But this could have been something bigger that I might have to do and having Sony turning off your ability to download what you have legally purchased is not cool. This could happen to anyone on any digital download sites.
@NXP3
Sorry to hear about your situation. See this is the reason many turn to piracy. You contacted Sony directly to address the problem, and instead of treating you like a valuable loyal customer, they decided you were disposable. $2 credit from Sony is insignificant, yet they decided to stand their ground and may have lost your business for life. Well my friend, you were billed the $2 for The Last Guy, now go download your copy "elsewhere" to get your moneys worth.
To all the people who wondered why Sony didn't just replace the PSP3000 with the PSPGo, this is the reason. And why I don't think downloads will ever truly replace physical media.
companies like Blockbuster are in danger of being extinct in the future. I would even say that Best Buy fits into this category. They are brick & mortar throwbacks with high prices and terrible service. Everything I can buy at BestBuy I get at Amazon and everything else like large appliance, etc I get at Costco or Frys.
The umd is killing the psp with a small storage capasity you can only half decent games look at FF7 that game would never fit on a single UMD.. With digital downloads we can have 5-10GB games offering better quality. Also with the price of MS dropping who is to say game developers won't just make them on locked memory sticks and sell them for both old psp's and new?