Why the Playstation Portable Isn't Going to Replace Your Handheld

Ed Hardy · 03-25-2005, 08:32 AM

The Playstation Portable is a very impressive device with plenty of features any Palm OS or Pocket PC user would envy. But Brighthand's Ed Hardy says it isn't going to satisfy most current handheld users.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Pl...able_Editorial

JackAubrey · 03-25-2005, 09:03 AM

Sony got it right this time:

Focus on ONE customer. Win the associated market and then capture adjacent markets with variations of the same product. That's how successful platforms are built.

PDAs fail because they try to capture too many different customers with a general solution. It satisfies virtually no one. That's one of the main reasons that Sony abandoned the PDA market.

Pay attention to Sony's effort in this space. Successful products are not as random as you suggest. Sony dropped the ball on portable music when they broadened their focus too early across too many customers (just like PDAs have done for ten years!). Sony has learned their lesson.

PlasticMan · 03-25-2005, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JackAubrey
Sony dropped the ball on portable music when they broadened their focus too early across too many customers

no sony dropped the ball when it refused to offer mp3 players. your right, it did learn its lesson and the psp can play mp3s.

rob · 03-25-2005, 10:06 AM

Lets face it, nobody is going to confuse this with a handheld replacement.

What it is, is an incredible handheld gaming device. And if they can actually get the ball rolling with video releases on UMD format...WOW. The Spiderman 2 movie that is included is nothing short of spactacular. Amazing display, and quite good sound from the earbuds.

Other that to sleep, and go to work (of course I did take it to work

), this thing has yet to be out of my hands.

I couldn't be happier with it.

palmato · 03-25-2005, 10:33 AM

IMHO the PSP is targeted at handheld users as much as the PS was at PC users. That is, not at all.

On the other hand gaming on handhelds is bound to radically change. If the PSP manages to sell well, and until now there are no signals suggesting otherwise, game producers will start to target it with more interest. At the expense of games on pdas, because the potential market of the PSP will be considerably larger than either palm or ppc platforms. Besides the obvious technical limitations of both.

The other side effect is that the portable media player is dead. And rightfully so, shall I add. Putting gaming and media player in the same device is a good idea, keeping them separate makes no sense.

Having said all of the above, it's too early to make bold predictions. For instance it's still unclear how difficult it will be for developers to port games to the psp. Technical problems of the device might still hamper its acceptance. Among other things.

Still the gaming platform is expanding into the handheld market.
Add GPS to the PSP and many potential buyers of pdas will instantly migrate. And happily so.

Double-Trinity · 03-25-2005, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by palmato

On the other hand gaming on handhelds is bound to radically change. If the PSP manages to sell well, and until now there are no signals suggesting otherwise, game producers will start to target it with more interest. At the expense of games on pdas, because the potential market of the PSP will be considerably larger than either palm or ppc platforms.

Well, at this point the games on the PPC/Palm markets are generally pretty low priority. when I do play games on there, it's usually in the form of emulators, although what I'm looking for in a handheld is pretty much everything except games -- word processing, photo editing, notetaking, PIM, multimedia playback, and (the big one for me) reference materials.

I imagine that eventually Pocket PCs and regular desktop PC will begin to merge, in several years I imagine one iwll be able to buy a high-res pocket PC with a slightly different shell than a desktop PC that can run most of the same applications native. When that happens, and PC games are feasible to run on a handheld with no (or minimal) porting, then specialized gaming devices like this will go away. That could take quite a long time to happen, though.

livefaith · 03-25-2005, 11:49 AM

This will cause the PDA replacements. You should have been in Chattanooga this morning for the CLIE-sp launch! This thing is phenominal. Can't believe that it's not even been reported on here. BH where are you?

Anyway here's what the device looks like and the scene outside Office Depot this morning. They only had 12 to offer. I was 7th in line and bought 6.

CLIE-sp ... a $249 phenominon

Office Depot Chattanooga for the launch!

livefaith · 03-25-2005, 12:03 PM

Ed,

I agree with your assessment. The PSP is spectacular for what it is designed for, but not as a PDA.

One thing I would question. Several days ago I watched a portion of Spider Man II on the PSP and it was absolutely stunning. I own a T3 with "higher reolution", but the implementation on the PSP looked light years ahead of my 480x320 for some reason. I just got a 1GB card, so I'm gonna start running DVD movies on the T3, but I'll be shocked if the movie looks as good as the PSP. I was very impressed.

BTW, the 4.3" screen is quite a bit larger than a POS or PPC and the "lessed" resolution is actually no loss because the aspect for movies is more along the shape of a PSP. I compared by T3 screen alongside and it looked childish. I love the screen on my PDA, but it could not compare to the PSP.

wshwe · 03-25-2005, 01:49 PM

Wait for someone to put Linux on the PSP. Don't forget Nintendo has a Palm OS license.

03-25-2005, 02:36 PM

Narrow your focus
Dominate your market
Leave the others in the dust.