Insomniac Not interested In Developing For Sony NGP Will Stick To Consoles

[Mr Khan]

rocketpig said:

Mr Khan said:

rocketpig said:

Good for them, because the way I see it, very few are going to make money on the NGP. I think it's going to be a colossal fucking failure for Sony and its developers.

The PSP didn't work in 2004. The NGP, which is basically an uber-PSP, is certainly not going to work in 2011. Some Japanese devs might be able to take advantage of increased Asian appeal for the device but I think it's going to tank hard in Europe and it's going to REALLY tank in the US/Canada. In an iPhone/iPad/Android world, there just isn't room for a $250 (and up)  dedicated gaming handheld in Western markets unless it's made by Nintendo (and I think even the 3DS will struggle to come close to repeating the DS' success).

A little disingenuous. The PSP was a viable non-Nintendo handheld, and while it certainly failed in the face of the DS, well, that's a high hurdle for anyone to face, and PSP did more than any non-Nintendo handheld before it, and performed strongly in Japan

We still haven't proven that the market has been hurt by the presence of iPhone/Android etc., most of that has just been noise from executives with a vested interest one way or another

The PSP was a viable handheld and I owned one. It was decent, though I played my DS about ten times more than the PSP.

The thing is that most big developers seemed to fare pretty badly on the PSP. So what did Sony do? They made a new PSP with increased pixel count so development costs are higher. Given the increased competition in 2011 from convergence devices, it's a bad strategy. The first PSP was far from a resounding success in a less crowded market but somehow the NGP is going to fare better at a higher price point, higher developer costs, and in a much more crowded portable gaming market? I don't think so.

It's obvious that the market has been hurt in the West. I don't know anyone who carries a portable with them anymore and I know more hardcore gamers than I can count. If my friends want a gaming fix, they pull out an iPhone/Android device and play on it, surf the web, use apps, etc. The market is getting stronger by the day and the devices are cheaper, more useful, more versatile than an NGP (not to mention that games rarely go above $10 on the devices). Sony can't just pretend that these devices don't exist and that the market hasn't changed. Unless the device has five exclusives that I'm dying to play (incredibly unlikely), there is no way I can see me or any of my friends buying one (most of whom owned a DS with several who owned PSPs).

The iPhone changed the market. Pushing forward with "teh mor3 graphiczss!!!1!" strategy at $250/350 price points is going to be a damned tough sell in 2011 and it appears that Insomniac sees the writing on the wall, just like me and my friends.

I don't think it's an issue of "seeing the writing on the wall." Western devs have been notoriously poor supporters of handhelds overall and always for one, and for two, Sony's first party developers and free affiliates like Insomniac have never given the PSP the attention they should have, hence all the second-rate versions of the PS2/PS3 greats that PSP ended up getting