Written on Sep 25th, 2008 by Dave

Posted In: Sony PSP News

John Koller Responds to Poor Number of PSP Releases

As I posted yesterday, Edge printed an article that talked about the decline in PSP software titles this year compared to 2006 and 2007. They have now posted a response to the article from John Koller, the SCEA director of hardware marketing.

Koller acknowledged the reality of the situation. “On the software side we’ve been very open about the fact that there are fewer games this year,” he said, alluding to earlier comments made by Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida. According to Koller, the major reason for 2008’s slow schedule comes down to the nature of the development cycle, relative to slower PSP hardware sales in 2006.

“Decisions made 20-22 months ago from a development cycle perspective are affecting the quantity of titles available today,” Koller explains. “20-22 months ago developers and publishers were looking at the PSP hardware and thinking `It’s not selling as well, maybe it’s time to move our resources elsewhere.’” Koller also mentions that publishers and developments were also measuring the viability of the then very new next generation consoles at the time.

Koller then goes on to talk about the demographics of the PSP, badly targeted games, and the shift from the mid-20’s males that the PSP was orignally marketed at to the parents buying the PSP for their younger children.

He also acknowledges that the trend to port games from other systems to the PSP wasn’t the best strategy, even going as far as saying it failed. This ties in with the sales figures for games such as Monster Hunter Freedom, Loco Roco, and Pat-a-pon, that all launched on the PSP and all sold well (in relative terms anyway.)

The future, according to Koller, is bright. Stronger hardware sales since the price was slashed, and the revised PSP-3000 unit should see third-party developers coming back to the PSP and developing new content. I would argue that the problem of piracy is still a big factor in this decision, but no mention of this is made by Koller.

Perhaps the most promising thing to come out of response by Koller is the following:

“I think going into next year we’re going to see significant growth. We’re counseling retail to be ready for it. We have a number of very strong franchise games on the docket that will be launching next year. We haven’t gone public with those, and many third-parties have not yet either because they’re concentrating on holiday, but we have a number of very strong titles coming.”

I look forward to seeing what these strong titles are.

Get the full article over at Edge.