| puffy said: What about when Sony decided to add two analog sticks to the PS1 mid-generation? Same thing right? |
On paper it doesnt sound to different, but when put into working practise there is a big difference between the two.
Biggest point is this: Shelling out £25 on a new control pad doesnt seem so bad. Its fairly cheap, its new, its shiny. Its on the PS1 so chances are a few million are going to pay out a relatively small sum of cash for it. So you can Just say "Hey this game is Dualshock Only. No pad, no play" Its like Guitar Hero, you need to get a new controller to play it, only its much cheaper than Guitar Hero. No pad, no play, no higher development costs.
Adding a second stick to the PSP means people wanting to have this new control system are not forking out £25, they are splashing around £199 for what is really the same hardware, but with another stick. People are far less likely to hand over that sort of money to buy a new machine to play one or two new games.
The not so big point is this: Sony is having a hard enough time shifting PSP games outside of Japan as it is. lets be honest now, the FPS is really the only game style that is goin to make good use of a second stick. A genre that doesnt go down too well in Japan as it is. From a business point of view releasing a whole new hardware line of PSP in the hope that western studio start making cracking FPS games for PSP and we all start buying them is just too much of a risk too take.
