That suave looking young man to the left is none other than David Perry, game developer, founder of Shiny, and respected industry voice. He was tracked down by Gamesindustry.biz and asked what he would do if he was in charge of the PSP.
His words are less than kind as he essentially calls for a complete dismantling of the entire system and the way it works. While stopping short of saying that the PSP is doomed, he does seem to imply as much.
"They really need to restart the PSP program in my book. They really need to bring out the PSP 3.0 and start again and try to get a lot of units out by reducing the manufacturing costs, by taking out all the motors and drives and stuff they have in there. That will make it even more sexy-looking, because it will be thinner again when they get all that junk out. Then, hopefully, the platform will actually get enough interest so that people will make a game specifically for it."
He means of course by "taking out all the drives and stuff," that they should get rid of the UMD drive, and convert entirely to digital download. The PSP has leaned toward that direction slightly when the PS3 was released, but he went on to explain how that slope is even more slippery than most would think.
"The truth is, the stores will not carry PSPs unless they feel they are going to get a piece of the action on the back end. And Sony has not come up with an innovative business model that can support that concept."
The words offered by Perry are not ones of hope for Sony’s struggling, though not yet deceased handheld. You can bet Sony knows there is room for improvement and is working to make their product as popular with consumers as possible.
