Should the PSP be viewed as a succes or a failure?

[jman8]

Biggerboat said:

jman8 said:

I wouldn't quite count out the UMD just yet. The new PSP redesign with video out is only going to help sales of the movies, especially since they are encoded in 480p. Now if they just offer the videos at a more reasonable price, the format could still have some life. And it sounds like Sony execs understand this. Check out this Kotaku interview of Jack Tretton: http://kotaku.com/gaming/kotakutalku/jack-tretton-on-future-of-umd-278504.php.

Along those lines, there's a movie/music download service that's on the way that could be successful.

Also, we're still really early into the life of the system. It's only been 2 years and 4 months since it came out. If it has a 5 year lifecycle like most game systems, it's not even half way done. Again, I think the redesign will help bolster sales at least for this holiday season, which will probably be its best season to date.

If the video output was for all models then I'd think it would have a bigger impact but as far as I'm aware it's just the Lite. Also whilst a nice feature I don't think it'll be a system seller and would again possibly have little effect on game sales. The thing I don't get about Sony making a more efficient model is that the've put in a less powerful battery meaning that even though it eats less power the new PSP will have just as short a play length per charge as before! Incredible decision! Maybe Sony will make some dough on media downloads but if that scene is anything like the gaming one on the system then most PSP owners will be getting their fix illegally.

Considering UMD sales are pretty much in the dumps, i dunno how video out wouldn't positively impact UMD sales. Sure video out is only on the new model, but sales of the new model are gonna be significantly better than the old one because of the overall improvement to the system in every way with little to no negatives. And if you watched the Jack Tretton interview I linked, you would've heard that it sounds like Sony understands that it has to price UMDs more competitively than they are currently. The video out feature adds a whole new dimension of value to UMDs. Remember, UMDs are encoded in 480p. So video quality is actually quite good on TV screens. In fact it probably equals DVD quality as long as you're not playing your DVD on a fancy upscaling player. The biggest sacrifice UMDs make is lack of surround sound (how many people have surround sound?) and lack of bonus features (do people actually care that much about bonus content? maybe a little.) Now I'm not saying UMDs are gonna be the new DVD, in fact I doubt any format becomes the "new DVD," but it still has potential for some success even if it is small. Between UMDs, Blu Ray, and Video-on-demand/Downloadable Content, it seems like Sony has their bases covered for replacing DVDs. Might really confuse the customers though....