Sony exec says PSP Go 'confused' consumers, might have been too expensive
By Donald Melanson 
posted February 25th 2010 2:16PM
posted February 25th 2010 2:16PM
Well, we've already heard some rumors that Sony was considering a relaunch of sorts for the PSP Go, and it looks like at least some execs from the company are now starting to speak publicly about why such a move might be necessary. In an interview with IndustryGamers, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer admitted that the PSP Go did "confuse" customers, and that the "higher price point didn't help matters any either" -- not exactly the sort of thing you hear Sony say every day. Does that mean we'll be seeing updated hardware or a lower price anytime soon? Dyer unsurprisingly wouldn't say when pressed, adding only that Sony is "going back and re-communicating" with consumers.
They just now realized this?!?!
Resident Evil 5 coming to the 360.
Duh ... we are a stupit.
Where is PSP going to go?
And why does cost much to get there?
uh ... duhhhhhhh......
oh, "Two and a Half Men" is on.
I'm pretty sure the consumers weren't confused by the PSP Go. They see it as a poorly-designed and poorly-priced product it is.
@masso
If they did more market research they would have noticed that a large majority of people would've wanted twin analogue sticks. Sony could've sold so many more PSPgos.
Um...what? I'm confused.
@bjblackmamba
Hell, I bought a Go a while ago and I'm still confused.
As easy as it is to mock Sony for not seeing what was obvious to everyone else from the start, they do deserve some credit for admitting their mistake.
If they wanted to dump umd, they should have gone for a complete update to the psp, it has been 5 years or so since it launched and thats not a bad length of time for it to last in its current form.
If they brought out a totally new system that was digital only and it bombed, Sony would be in deep. I think the idea with the Go was to test the waters first.
How could Sony drop the ball on this after the ps3 launch, I dont understand this, jeez.
it's a pity, because this was the best psp yet.
my last 6 psp games were off from the psn network, to boot.
Sony's right, I was confused by the lack of dual analog sticks.
It's not so much that I'm confused than it is that I bought the PSP at release and I didn't really use it much because it was locked. Didn't bother cracking it in the hopes of something awesome to come down the line.
Sadly nothing interesting happened, it got a web browser that was slow and unusable, if you wanted to enter a URL it would take 5 minutes just to type it. So no, it wasn't really confusing, I just didn't want it. Hell, in my opinion iPhone is a better gaming device than the PSP, and its not even trying to be one.
"Confused?" I'm fucking sick of corporate America thinking that their customers are a bunch of dim-witted jackasses.
@n00neimp0rtant
Japan
If the point of this was to do business out of games, they cannot also do business with the device, i guess they were just too ambitious !!!!
Why do Sony execs think consumers are confused? I think consumer understood exactly what they are doing and NOT buying it. Can't use existing games or accessories and I have pay more for it? No thanks!
I think the execs are the ones confused. Sony's pretty good lately at saying all the wrong/stupid things they've been doing but not so good at doing anything about it.
This is a prime example whose attempt to market their overpriced product solely on their broken once glorious brand name. That's been a trend of Sony now for the past decade and for some odd reason they refuse to turn from their way of doing things. Consumers aren't stupid Sony...stop acting like they are.
WHAT I MEANT TO SAY. HEAT OF THE MOMENT HAD THE BEST OF ME.
This is a prime example of a company whose attempt to market their overpriced product solely on their broken once glorious brand name. That's been a trend of Sony now for the past decade and for some odd reason they refuse to turn from their way of doing things. Consumers aren't stupid Sony...stop acting like they are.
@DRAZY
I think Sony showed that they're willing to listen when they went with the Slim and reduced price across the board all at once. They could've just lowered the price on the Phat and kept the Slim at the old pricepoint but they didn't. There's still some hope for Sony.
I'm happy with my PSP Go, bought at €200, with 3 psp go rewards games using my brother's 3000 and one free Gran Turismo. More than worth the price(since the 3000 is about €169, if you want 4 games and a 16 gig memory card with it, it's going to cost you a helluvalot more)
Maybe Sony also didn't realize that I am not willing to pay list price for a digital downloaded game (that takes 2+ hours to download + install) when the same game on UMD format is going for 1/2 of the 'list price' at Target/WalMart/GameStop/etc?
"PSP Go did "confuse" customers" No Sony really? we didn't notice over all the poor sales. This thing was destined to fail from the get go! Confused, Overpriced, Not backward compatibility, and it didn't fix the main issues with the PSP. Which is the fact it's very hard to play a game with only D-Pads. "ADD A GAMEPAD SONY!' Trying to play a shooter with the PSP is a joke!
Slight re-write of the entry:
In an interview with IndustryGamers, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer admitted that the PSP Go did "confuse" customers because they couldn't figure out why Sony would make such an idiotic decision to release it, and that the "higher price point didn't help matters any either", because, obviously it confused people who liked not making frivolous purchases.-- not exactly the sort of thing you hear Sony say every day.
Or how about this re-write:
Slight re-write of the entry:
In an interview with IndustryGamers, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations Rob Dyer admitted that the PSP Go did "confuse" customers because they weren't smart enough to buy it and feed the Sony execs another filet mignon -- EXACTLY the sort of thing you hear Sony say every day.
Take your pick, in any case.
Took SONY long enough to figure that out.
And in other news today we find water is wet and it gets dark with no sun out.
I bought my PSP Go and the day at launched and couldn't be happier. Yes the price was a bit steep, but the idea of not carrying around discs was appealing. I did already have a regular psp but I never plated it bc sometimes i could not find the discs. I think its good that they may lower the price. Right now as it is, i'm sure sales expectations are really low.
Sony: Oops
"Re-communicating" doesn't sound promising. Reiterating what is already known.
"Hey you guys, we know you think the price was high then, but it's been almost 5 months...what do you think about the price NOW?....nothing?....k...how about NOW?...NOW?....NOWNOW?"
"Hey you guys, we know we aren't publishing every game we have on digital format and we still aren't but...HEY HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW DASH?"
"Hey you guys, we know we have a cheaper product that does more and still plays all your current games but don't you guys really just want to pay us more for less? C'mon....you do it for Apple."
"Hey you guys, we constantly make terrible decisions and you keep buying our stuff so don't act surprised."
"Hey you guys, you need to buy this new version. Don't make us release some firmware to brick all your old PSP's like we are doing the PS3's now."
I could go on...
For the record I prefer my PS3 hardware to my 360 but that in no way reflects my view of Sony's business decisions.
@HektikLyfe OMG they F***in' did it!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/01/sony-dont-turn-on-your-ps3-until-psn-bug-is-fixed/
Personally I like the IDEA behind the PSP Go. I never liked UMD's. I could kid myself that 10 years from now I will break out my PSP Go and play some classics but that won't happen. Fork it. Make them digital and give me access to them for a few years.
I don't like the lack of a second stick.
I don't like the price.
I don't like that EVERY new game does not come out in digital format.
I don't like that installs take so long.
I don't like that you need new proprietary memory.
It didn't just confuse consumers. Any that knew the product line at all knew that the PSP Go was released with a pathetic library of online titles, just a fraction of the total titles available for the PSP. I looked through the online store on my regular PSP, and most of the titles I have aren't even available online, so how the hell does Sony expect to compete with a neutered selection of games for their unit?
Can't say I was surprised by the fail, I saw it coming the moment they announced the product (and the lack of legacy UMD support). Which, of course, meant the PSP Go could no longer compete with the DS in the rental/resale games market either. They just kept wrapping anchors around the neck of the product, and seem surprised it didn't float.
@Vrmithrax
They had the idea of a pipe dream, one where they would have this magical server that could store a few hundred games and sell infinite copies and then the magical server would spit out MONEY!!!
Of course in the process of this pipe dream they forget to: make it easy, develop a way to purchase games without a credit card or wireless internet access -- sell them retail, Provide rentals so people can try out these games, launch it along aside a next generation portable gaming platform. Also SONY should have thought how stupid it would look to have this PSPGo next to all these PSP games in a retail store, people would naturally look around for PSPGo games and not find any, and then buy some PSP UMDs.
PSPGo!
Q: Does it play PSP games that I bought from the store?
A: NO
Q: Is this next generation PSP?
A: NO
Q: So does it play games?
A: Yes!
Q: So were do I get these games?
A: Online
Q: So I can download them from iTunes?
A: NO
Q: So whose is it marketed to?
A: People who didn't like UMD
Q: So who didn't like UMD?
A: People who have PSPs
Q: So is there a way to transfer purchased UMD games for the PSP to the PSPGo
A: NO
Ok... give me a touch screen, UMD's (or a way to convert/upload them), and a lower price point, then i would buy it...
@WikiWarrior
Exactly.
Sony should do the following to make the PSPGo a success:
1. Lower the price. the consensus is $150 sounds about right
2. Put an external UMD drive in the box that has two dunctions:
a) to allow connectivity to the PSPGo for people who want to play
their UMD games on the system
b) to connect to a computer and convert upload the owned UMD
games to the PSPGo directly so that people can play their
existing game collection. Having to upload directly from a disk
limits fraud because you have to physically posses the disk to
upload it. I know you can borrow your friends games and put
them on your PSPGo that way and Sony hates that, but you can
borrow the disk from a friend and play it the way it is now anyway
so true theft is still limited especially if the upload is direct and no
digital copy is created on the computers hard drive making ability
to redistribute digital copies of games limited
I will take my $200 000K salary and corporate Lexus now please
i'm a confused customer. I'm confused as to why Sony would think anyone would pay so much for a portable console that has less features than it's predecessor and costs almost as much as a PS3. I'm confused as to why they though ppl would value this product. I foresaw failure the day it was announced. I'm confused as to why sony didn't.
PSP is a nearly 6 year old platform, most of the people who wanted it purchased it years ago.
So reintroducing the platform in the age of digital downloads while offering absolutely nothing new other then a new form factor, and charging an outrageous price premium for it, is a plan designed to fail from conception.
Some are saying that the PSPGo is not for people who already have a PSP, in other words a niche item. Well, if that was Sony's plan it worked perfectly and they have no reason to be complaining about poor sales since the target audience from conception was only a couple dozen people. Like I said PSP came along in 2004, people who wanted it, have it. The whole platform is past it's prime.
Upgrades to the DS platform which is just as old were targeted specifically at getting people who already had the system to buy it again and offered a value proposition to do so, smaller, better screens, camera, larger screens etc... while not ditching any of the features that the platform was known for and maintaining compatibility with existing accessories for the most part.
Sony wanted people to repurchase the PSP platform, but they took features away AND took away compatibility with existing accessories, AND jacked up the price.
What's confusing Sony? That customers told you to shove it up your own backside while you tried to stick it in theirs? You got caught, deal with it and move on, stop making excuses.
Edible software is a bad idea amrite Sony?
dont forget regular psp games that need to be registered to play online. so you can't sell them.....
sony is fu%^ they need a wakeup call and that call is coming
They finally realised it's waay to expensive for what it does.. Still waiting for a portable ps3 or 360 :)
Just look at the picture attached to this article. How is that person holding the PSP Go? They are holding comfortably, which puts their thumbs and finger far away from the controls. The thing looks awkward.
Alternate title: "Sony Exec States the Obvious."
Changing the USB port for a non-proprietary standards would be the first step in coming to terms with why the PSP go is "confusing".
And it's ugly.
I was so excited about the psp go prior to it being announced. I don't know how it is possible that Sony could have possibly done more to convince me not to buy one.
We where confused cause they tried to sell us a piece of turd they where confused cause they couldn't figure out why we wouldn't buy the piece of turd and now they are thinking wait they don't understand it's not just a turd it's a golden turd Sony u rock
Note to Sony for next time:
You cannot compete with both the Nintendo DS and the Apple iPhone with one product (especially a 6 year old product)
Next generation PSP must have two separate hardware platforms and one online software catalog, but you have two problems. Since you must have one piece of hardware that directly competes with the next generation DS, and one that tackles smartphones like the iPhone, you run into trouble on both fronts.
First, the hardware platform that competes with Nintendo's future offering must have retail appeal and be priced cheap enough to appeal to parents budgets and targeted towards the youth audience. But how do you make retail stores want to carry it without a high margin since there will be no physical media games to sell with it? Possible solution sell pre-paid PSN cards at major retail but still not nearly as appealing as disks to stores. Plus since it must be youth focused because otherwise it overlaps with the other hardware platform (a smartphone), how do you make margins on it since you have to give the profits to the stores to entice them to put it on the shelf?
The second platform must be a smartphone to compete with smartphones. Great, but you don't own your own phone business, and do not want to compete with your joint venture. So do you dilute the PSP platform by handing it over to the joint venture Sony Ericsson do make a PSP phone or do you compete directly with your joint venture by keeping PSP 100% Sony and making your first Sony phone in about a decade? Giving PSP over to Sony Ericsson runs the risk of turning it into the next nGage.
Or just give up on portable gaming and let Nintendo have that market like everyone else has?
I love my PSP go. My only problem with it was the price. The screen size isn't a big deal because the better pixel density is worth it. The design feels more natural to me and load times are much faster. I don't have room to carry much with me and I'm never at home so the PSPgo was the best model for me. I just hope that if they lower the price too much that they give the early adopters a treat (DLC or a mini or something) for supporting them when everyone else was against buying the PSPgo.
does exact same thing as the original PSP out what 5 years ago? and they wanna charge more for it??? meh no thanks