A hands-on revolution?
Sony hopes next week's debut of PlayStation Portable will shake up the mobile entertainment market.
By DAVE GUSSOW
Published March 14, 2005
Sony is big in video games, movies and music. Now, Sony wants to get big in a small way.
The PSP (PlayStation Portable), which goes on sale March 24, may sound like just another game machine. But it's being billed as a "handheld entertainment system" to play games, watch movies, view photos and listen to music.
It also carries the hopes of the electronics giant to create a buzz once again with a new product. If early reports are an indication, it may succeed. Some people couldn't wait for the U.S. rollout and reportedly traveled to Japan to buy theirs early.
"It's very likely to be the most sold out, eBay profitable consumer electronics product of the spring and into the fall," said Richard Doherty, research director of the Envisioneering Group, a market research company.
Sony enters the mobile entertainment market behind some key competitors. Longtime rival Nintendo has had a lock on handheld games with its Game Boy Advance and more recent Nintendo DS systems. Wireless companies have been pitching more games for cell phone users.
And while Sony's Walkman was the pioneer in portable music players, Apple Computer's iPod now dominates the market for pocket-sized digital music players. Portable video is seen as an emerging market.
Yet the company says none of that matters.
"We look at the PSP as being a mobile entertainment device. We're trying to create a new market," Kaz Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.'s chief executive, told the Associated Press. "I don't see any of those products being a direct competitor."
Sony needs a hit to regain its edge and swagger as an industry leader and is sparing no expense in promoting the PSP. The company is promising 1-million units will be available this month, and even at $249.99 demand is expected to outstrip supply.
The backstory to the PSP, with its allowance-busting sticker price and vast capability, is that video gaming is no longer the territory of teenagers alone. Sony, like other makers of gaming machinery, expects to sell its latest and greatest to consumers well into their 30s.
The trend in game designs helps feed maturing interests with more challenging role-playing and in some cases more violent games. While a majority of games still carry an E rating (Everyone), more than half of sales last year were for games rated T (Teen) and M (Mature) for older players.
"You have this whole generation of teens, now in their 20s and 30s, that still want to play video games," said Mike Salmond, who teaches digital media at Elon University in North Carolina. "The developers of games are all in their 20s, 30s and 40s now, so they want to develop games they'd want to play."
The first million PSP units will include a copy of the Spider-Man 2 movie, and at least two dozen games ($40-$50 each) are expected to be available when the PSP goes on sale.
Sony also will use the PSP to link its entertainment business with the device, including Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releasing PSP versions of movies such as XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil 2 and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Only one other studio, Lions Gate Entertainment, has agreed to provide movies for the PSP, with titles such as House of the Dead and Total Recall.
Among the features of the device are a 4.3-inch liquid crystal display screen, Wi-Fi capabilities so up to 16 devices can wirelessly network for competition, and a 32-megabyte Memory Stick to store game information or other data, as well as be shared with other Sony devices.
In addition, a USB 2.0 port can connect the PSP to a computer so it can be used as a hard drive. Sony also is introducing the Universal Media Disc, or UMD, for the games and movies.
Video games, in particular the top-selling PlayStation 2, have been one of the bright spots for Sony in recent years, though it has been under intense pressure from Microsoft's Xbox system.
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have produced more powerful consoles that allow more elaborate game play and sophisticated graphics. The handheld market is a small but growing element that is expected to change the face of gaming.
DFC Intelligence, a research firm that focuses on interactive entertainment, predicts the portable game market will grow from $4-billion last year to $11.1-billion in 2007.
Still, Salmond, who once taught at the University of South Florida, has doubts about some aspects of the PSP: Shrinking games onto a small screen "diminishes the experience," he said, and role-playing games that require long hours of play would be difficult.
While people can listen to music and do other things at the same time, watching video takes your full attention.
"I'm not sure we've made the mental shift to portable entertainment devices," Salmond said.
-- Information from Times wires and files was used in this report. Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or 727 771-4328.