Crap Detector: Sony originally planning PSP to go UMD-less is a lie
Do you smell that? It’s the scent of hogwash. It’s coming from an interview with Sony’s product planning group head, Naoya Matsui at GameBusiness.jp (via Joystiq). Matsui revealed that Sony had always planned for its PlayStation Portable to go UMD-less, and that its new PSP Go is the end result of that vision.
Matsui said:
We’d planned to release a PSP model without a UMD drive since the very beginning. But if we’d simply released the hardware, there wouldn’t have been much for everyone to enjoy. We needed to prepare the right environment for it first - things like the transferral of content with the PS3 and PSN, and PC software to manage content like music and movies such as Media Go.
Matsui reasoned that Sony was just waiting for digital content to be on par with physical media, and that the “timing now is right.”
I say that’s a load of crap and you know it. Here’s why: while the PSP has been selling pretty well (total of 51.6 million as of March), sales of UMD movies haven’t been something to write home about. Since 2006, U.S. retailers have been removing UMD movies from their shelves.
If you remove movies out of the PSP equation, then what’s the point of keeping the UMD format in Sony’s handheld? Games? The same PSP games that are pirated by hundreds of thousands of people daily? Better to keep the PSP games in digital form where Sony can implement stricter measures in the handheld’s firmware.
The UMD has been considered a bust, thanks to its merciless pricing. What would you rather have: a DVD movie with bonus features, or the more expensive UMD version that doesn’t have any extras? This bit about Matsui saying the “timing is right” is another way of saying Sony wants to forget about the PSP’s UMD format.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 1:30 am
Hi. I read a few of your other posts and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links?
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July 3rd, 2009 at 1:38 am
Sure, Rick. Let’s do this.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 6:06 am
Interesting,you actually think you know more than Sony.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Do you believe everything you hear even if you know they’re obviously lying?
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July 3rd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Ehhh I don’t really know if they are lieing or not, sony does lie alot, but I could actually see how a UMD-less psp could of been one of the designs from the start, when the psp came out the ps3 wasn’t out so you couldn’t just download games from there and move them over, and psn wasn’t really much, it wasn’t what it is today and it didn’t allow downloads and wasn’t ment to handle what it can do now it has taken years after the ps3 was released to grow into what it is now.
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July 3rd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
You mean the UMD’s failure has nothing to do with it? I tell you, if the UMD didn’t fail (theoretically), Sony wouldn’t be saying this now.
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July 4th, 2009 at 12:17 am
stop being pessimistic. the point is that we get a better psp. sure we were fooled into buying the first or second or even third version of the psp, psp 1000 personally, but the fact remains that we get a new psp which is what many have been asking about for years. just relax with all your,” SONY IS LYING!!! DON’T YOU SEE!!!”. lol. i mean what makes you so qualified to judge what a company as big as sony has been doing?
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July 4th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Yes and you work for Sony so you would know..man you need to stop creating SHIT on the net so you can get hits, your talking rubbish. The UMD movies did not sale well, but guess what? the games are on UMD so the format is viable. Companies like Sony, Microsoft are always think ahead, do you not think when they put out their consoles, they are not thinkin about what to do next. Sony have been planing Digital distribution for a very long time…and I can tell you for a fact that this is the first step in what they intend to achieve with Digital distribution..look to the clouds in the near future..P.S stop chatting shit and making dumb ass articles, I am sure you can get hits doing articles that gamers want to read about.
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July 4th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Mike is so obviously right it hurts. And it’s a damned shame people still believe this PR wish-wash.
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July 4th, 2009 at 1:37 am
To be honest, I doubt they’re lying.
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July 4th, 2009 at 1:40 am
@anonymous:
How do you know the PSP Go is “better” when it’s not even released yet? And when does a PSP match the price of the Wii?
@Tezza
“the games are on UMD so the format is viable”
If the UMD games are SO VIABLE, then why doesn’t the PSP Go have a UMD drive?
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July 4th, 2009 at 3:59 am
Mike, I’m sure you don’t need anyone to tell you this but you are mostly right and these guys are all suffering from sever cases of fanboyism. UMDs are going to become obsolete very soon after the PSP Go gains popularity. All those games will sit on shelves and in storage because nobody’s going to buy them.
As for Sony, they aren’t just going to to tell you what they’re really up to! They’re going to tell you what sounds good to its customer base and investors. Maybe they had considered digital distribution for PSP in the past, but the only reason it is being put into action now is what OP said: UMDs aren’t working in their favor. Also, perhaps a bit to do with the DSi’s new DSiWare service.
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AssultTank Reply:
August 4th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
You know, the games already sit on the shelves. The lack of security on the PSP, coupled with massive hacking networks for it make it so that any good games just get downloaded by just about everyone who would buy them.
Then there is the problem that even while in the PSP, the UMD tends to break apart, leading more PSP owners to get Custom firmware and download games so they don’t have to keep buying the same game over and over again. I chalk that part up to cheap materials and shoddy craftsmanship.
And finally, there is the thing that most of the games on the PSP aren’t very good, either due to shoddy controls and no way to change them, a lack of a second joystick that makes shooters harder to play, and some of the games just suck.
As for DSi Ware, I love it. Dr Mario and Sudoku for free because of their promotion? Awesome.
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July 4th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Sony lie a LOT
Mikes right… this sounds like a pile of crap dribbling from sonys mouth again.
UMD died a death just after its release. sony desperately don’t want to let go of all that money they’ve sunk into the umd tech. As if they’d spend all that time and money on a new format then ditch it a few years later. If it was successful, you can bet ya bottom dollar they’d be a UMD drive in psp go.
ps3 is going to be the interesting one… it’s currently lagging significantly against the Wii and Xbox360. Activision recently pointed this out. sony and it’s fanboys have been praying for the 360 sales to drop off… but it ain’t going to happen. The 360 price point is getting sweeter by the year. And now we have Natal!!! Totally blows the ps3 motion controller away… so I’m waiting to see how fast the ps3 is going to die
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July 4th, 2009 at 9:58 am
pessimism or not. the truth is companies need to make a acceptable profit, otherwise they will drop whatever it is that is not make money. To say mike is making shit is just mindless zealotry without hard facts to back it up. The same can be said for article that try to pass opinion as fact. Mike used first-person in his so it is obviously an opinion. One that i agree with. Read and discern the truth for yourself and don’t try antagonize a point of view that differs from yours without fact.
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July 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Well, basically, what Mike is saying is most likely absolutely true.
Almost everyone that has the original PSPs have jailbroken their handheld, and to be honest, the security measures put by Sony are laughable at best, and nonexistent at worst.
Of course, Sony cannot admit they are wrong, it would be a huge PR hit.
They also probably can’t deal with the fact that although the format they backed up - Blu-Ray - has succeeded, their proprietary format - UMD - is absolute trash.
Up until now, the PSP, although it has had its gems, has been falling back in sales in comparison to the Nintendo DS.
Yes, although the PS3 and the PSP have better hardware and are more powerful in comparison to the other systems out there on the market, for console consumers, power isn’t so much of concern as is price. Yes, the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player, great graphical ability, and a Core processor for under $500.
BUT — This is not a PC market, and even though it’s good for the price, in the end, it’s still too much money for the average consumer. That is why the 360 is leading in sales at the moment.
I am not a “fanboy” of any system, but I see that the PS3 and PSP has a lot of potential.
I would hope that the PS3 would do well. The 360 and PS3 both introduced new motion sensing peripherals that blows the Wii’s controller into the water.
But remember, even though they are better, the Wii will continue to sell like hotcakes, just because it is cheaper and family friendly.
Nintendo is at liberty to do whatever they wish. They HAVE the market share already. They don’t NEED to improve their tech. They hit the golden mean of cost versus technology.
The 360’s sales are not gonna cap off anytime soon, especially with the new price points and the extensive library.
But honestly, as long as Sony knows what they are doing, and acts on it, this should be anyone’s game at this point.
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August 4th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Who cares about that, why is the start&select buttons where those morons should have put the second analog stick, and don’t say it wouldn’t work because trust me, it would.
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