theprof00 said:
SUMMARY: Sony is being choked out of the portables market. NDS and iPhone, as well as other products, ie kindle / iPad are filling in the open portions of the market. The competition is so intense that Sony has lost all the advantages that the portable market is defined by. In order to compete successfully, Sony needs to either compete directly against the competition by releasing a clone, or by trying something completely new.
Details below.
PSP is starting to age badly. The console is sold mainly on the games it has targeting the rabid fans of those franchises, ie Monster HUnter, Idol Master.
Originally, the thing that made consoles and portables explode was that they had marked advantages over the competition. Consoles delivered gaming for a quarter of the hardware price and 100% more reliability without requiring any upgrades to core components. Portables did the same but with consoles on the recieving end. POrtables were cheaper, had all the same advantages of consoles vs PCs, but were, at first, a twentieth the price of laptops, the only other portable systems.
Looking at the market now, netbooks, cheap laptops, and smart phones have taken the place of the laptop vs portables. Using the Iphone as a basis for comparison, a portable gaming console now has no real advantages. The Iphone doesn't need upgrades, it always performs reliably, is affordable, popular, and also sports the advantage of being a phone too. Also, with the release of a new app called Line2, for 15$ a month, any iphone (or even IpodTouch) can have a phone line with an 800 number and makes calls over the internet for free.
So, what to do?
Nintendo has the right idea because they are taking a product (3d) and making it so accessible, without the need of glasses, and cheap, that it is going to swallow a big portion of the 3d movement. That is their new advantage. However, they also have the benefit of huge 1st party brand recognition, and a reputation for making great games.
However, Nintendo doesn't have the advantage of being a phone. So the way they stand, Nintendo is on one end and the iphone is on the other. From the Sony perspective, there is really no room unless they do somethign completely new, or engage in red ocean with both of them. However, there is nothing really new that they can do. Anything they can think of, software wise, can be done on the Iphone, and gaming is stronger on the DS. The only avenue is new hardware, or stealing 3d.
One particularly interesting idea I've been throwing around is a shades based console, similar to the one used in Heavy Rain. A pair of sunglasses and a glove could be amazingly accessible and has a lot of potential for improvement. Additionally, if the hardware was engineered well enough, multiple people could play on the same system, using different pairs of glasses and have a truly unique experience with it.
This could be easily done at a low price without any problems if it is engineered correctly, and it would open up a completely new market. It also has many distinct advantages over the others.
However, barring a new hardware type idea, the only option Sony really has is to steal the 3d idea from Nintendo, shamelessly, and compete directly with them. This is because not only is Nintendo going to disrupt the console 3d market, but psp is in a position now where it is being choked out of the portable market. However, if looking at Nintendo for the past three years has taught them anything, it's that Sony needs to compete directly with Nintendo in the future and stop allowing them to take new markets...because pretty soon they will all be gone.
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