Well, chalk this up for out of the ordinary -- Sony's PR team just sent us a "Statement from Sony PlayStation on PSP and Competitive Landscape" that basically boils down to SCEA director of hardware marketing John Koller calling the DSi a kid's toy that "ignores significant gamer demographics" and has minimal third-party support compared to the library of "blockbuster" titles on the PSP. Seriously, it's so weird we're just going to reprint the whole thing:
If Nintendo is really committed to reaching a broader, more diverse audience of gamers beyond the "kids" market that they've always engaged, there isn't much new with the DSi to support that. Significant gamer demographic groups are being ignored, and there continues to be limited opportunities for games from external publishers to do well on the DSi. Compare that with the PSP platform, where we have many blockbuster franchises from our publishing partners launching this year, representing a wide variety of genres and targeting diverse demographics. Games such as Rock Band Unplugged from MTV Games, Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft, Dissidia Final Fantasy from Square Enix, and Hannah Montana from Disney demonstrate the commitment that publishers have to the PSP. From our own first-party studios, we're launching unique versions of LittleBigPlanet and MotorStorm, and we're also planning a steady stream of downloadable games -- both new titles and PSone classics -- to add to the content that PSP owners can already purchase wirelessly through PlayStation Store.
Pretty strong words in response to the fairly un-hyped US launch of the DSi tomorrow -- especially since Ninty's sold just about twice as many total DS units than Sony's 50m PSPs, hard numbers from which no amount of marketing bluster can really distract. In fact, if we were in charge at Sony, we'd be more worried about the emergence of the iPhone and iPod touch, which have sold over 30m units total and attracted a ton of buzz from game developers while the PSP seems to be stagnating in the face of endless rumors of a UMD-less PSP2. Harsh truth? Maybe, maybe not -- you tell us.
(Engadget)
Your thoughts on this?
