21 replies to this topic

[ComputerSpaceFan]

Sorry if this has been discussed already but it's an intriguing conspiracy theory I just read about. Does anyone here work gaming retail and have any insights into the fact that retailers deliberately killed PSPGo sales so as not to lose their business?

http://www.industryg...rs-of-the-year/

"Everyone in the business remembers how Sony got kneecapped by retailers over the PSPgo, the handheld console that would only take downloaded software. Many retailers refused to even stock the subversive device that threatened their very way of life... and not surprisingly, it flopped"

[onlysublime]

No, it's lack of sales that killed the Go. If people really wanted a Go, they had a lot of other places to shop for it.

For one thing, I know a lot of portable gamers use their PSP for other things like emulators or get illegal images of games. Same thing for Nintendo DS. So the security lockdown features of the Go pissed off those people.

Another thing is if you already owned a PSP, you couldn't use those games on the Go. Their program to allow you to get your games on the Go was severely limiting. and the pricing of the digital games didn't make sense. The form factor irked many people. Lots of reasons to hate the PSPGo.

[Classic Pac]

No, I am not surprised it totally failed.

[Emehr]

I'm fine with retailers not wanting to stock a product that effectively kills profits from supplemental sales (i.e. games). If that's what they did, good on them. Tangible software has a place and so does downloadable software. Having said that, I think the PSPGo did a good enough job slicing its own throat. There wasn't a single redeemable quality about it. It was a poor experiment and doomed from the start whether retailers wanted it or not.

[godslabrat]

The Go died because it was overpriced and provided fewer capabilities than its sister handheld. Sony screwed up, end of list.

THAT SAID, however, I'm astonished at how retailers don't seem to be fighting hardware that works on download distribution or cloud tech. A huge part of their purpose is to eliminate the retail step, so I'm not sure why retailers are being so complacent. If I bought a DS from Best Buy, I'd be coming back for more games. If I bought a PSP Go, I'd give my money directly to Sony from then on... Best Buy (or whoever) loses the future sales. The same argument applies to iPods, Roku boxes, Kindles, and all non-media devices. Where is the win for the retailer, beyond the initial sale?

Sure, you could say they'll make their money on selling prepaid cards, but most of these services make it very appealing to just give your CC# directly to the OEM and, again, elminate the retailer altogether.

[Austin]

The GO is a nice little handheld. I will definitely be buying another one down the road when they are pennies just to get all my downloaded PSN titles on it.

That aside, the reasons it flopped has been described pretty well in the responses above. If there was some sort of conspiracy, I doubt it had as much of a detrimental effect as Sony's own choices for the system (terrible download pricing model, overly priced system, no UMD drive, etc).

[theloon]

Peeps weren't tenderized enough to fall for download only games. Now everyone's hot and STEAMy for such fare.

Edited by theloon, Thu Dec 29, 2011 3:50 PM.

[Video]

Was it kneecapped? Yes. Was it kneecapped by retailers? No.

It was done by Sony, by making a product, naming it "PSP" and intentionally cripplingit to NOT work with over 90% of the available library.

I've had several PSP's over the years, loved each, hated aspects of each. But the bad clearly outweighed the good with the "go" So....us consumers told it where to go and it went.

[Atariboy]

There are tons of UMD downloads available for this.

Looks like we're a bit past 700 PSP games released worldwide (Many dozens of which never got out of Japan or Europe). Counting the number of UMD downloads available in North America, I got bored and tired when I reached the 200 game mark with dozens of more games left uncounted. And several hundred other UMD's are available in other regions.

I bet we're well past the 50% mark for North American UMD releases that are available for download from PSN. I wouldn't be surprised if we were past the 75% mark. It's certainly no where even close to less than 10%.

[Skarrj]

The PSP Go was a failed third trimester abortion.

[moycon]

I think it's safe to say the PSPGo killed the PSPGo.

[Video]

Sure, and instead of going to walmart and buying said game for $10-$20, why don't I just download it for $20-$40 And last I checked....nope. Not a single one of my UMD's actually workin the go. Next?

Edited by Video, Mon Jan 2, 2012 2:57 PM.

[NightSprinter]

Don't forget a lot of games released on UMD are UMD-only. Fans got royally pissed when Kingdom Hearts for the PSP never saw a release on the Go (buuut.. I think from what I remember it's more my employer not allowing it than S-E), and quirky-but-awesome titles like Gitaroo Man Lives only came out on UMD.

[Eltigro]

I wouldn't doubt that retailers might've been a little reluctant to sell it. It would be like asking Exxon to sell electric cars. But I don't think they were that instrumental in its failure. They probably just looked at it as a sale. As long as the PSP that used actual hard copies of software (or however you wanna describe it) was still being sold, I don't think they cared that much. I think it was a sales thing. I'm okay with buying a console that uses both discs and downloaded software. I have a Wii and a 360 and have lots of downloaded games on both as well as discs. But I don't think people want to be tied down to one or the other (although I do know some people are very against downloaded games and prefer an actual copy on disc).

[akator]

Retailers happily sell tons of other electronics that they don't directly sell media for. This includes cell phones, smart phones, music players, tablets, whatever. Every one of those retailers sells pre-paid cards for online purchases, such as iTunes and PSN cards.

The PSP Go didn't fail because retailers didn't stock them. There are still PSP Gos at my local K-mart and Walmart. The majority of people simply didn't want them (and still don't) when cheaper and more flexible PSPs were and still are available.

I've considered buying a PSP Go just for the hell of it, but every time I look at one and think about it for more that 30 seconds I realize it's a complete waste of my money. I've already got a few PSPs in great condition with backup batteries, accessories, and tons of UMD games. None of that stuff works with the PSP Go and it has a sealed battery, and I don't enjoy doing surgery on things simply to replace a battery (assuming a replacement would be available in a few years anyway). I might consider buying one if I could get it NIB for $50, but otherwise no thanks... and that's coming from someone who likes the PSP. That's why the PSP Go didn't sell.

Edited by akator, Sun Jan 15, 2012 4:57 PM.

[Emehr]

akator, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 4:56 PM, said:

Retailers happily sell tons of other electronics that they don't directly sell media for. This includes cell phones, smart phones, music players, tablets, whatever. Every one of those retailers sells pre-paid cards for online purchases, such as iTunes and PSN cards.

There are (and never have been) expectations of supplemental media when it comes to cell phones, smart phones, music players, and tablets. It's a different market. And pre-paid cards do not directly correlate to physical media. You will never see a $20 pre-paid card marked down to 50% off in a bargain bin. It's just a voucher and has no real value. I'm not a retailer but if I were I would definitely have reservations about selling a video game system where I didn't see extra revenue from software.

[jadedrakerider]

The PSPGo had a chance, but the industry really isn't ready for such a device.

For one thing, consider the act of buying a digital license. It's just as expensive, or even more so, than buying a physical copy. Why should this be? Shouldn't it be less expensive since retailers and packagers are cut out of the chain? But those savings are not passed on to the consumer. Additionally, once you buy a digital copy of a game, you're stuck with it. You can't trade the game in, you can't give it to your buddy, and you can't sell it on Amazon or Craigslist.

So you end up paying more or just as much money for fewer digital rights with no way to mitigate the cost of the game.

Consumers like gadgets and convenience, but who can't smell that bullcrap a mile away?

Which is a pity, because if these companies want to ween consumers off of physical media, this is the time to do it. At the end of the console life cycle, where they could be giving away their best franchises and getting consumers hooked and eagerly anticipate the next iteration of their console.

Edited by jadedrakerider, Sun Jan 15, 2012 8:19 PM.

[Atariboy]

Video, on Mon Jan 2, 2012 2:56 PM, said:

Sure, and instead of going to walmart and buying said game for $10-$20, why don't I just download it for $20-$40 And last I checked....nope. Not a single one of my UMD's actually workin the go. Next?

How is that a rebuttal to my response about the availability of releases on PSN? I wasn't defending the pricing model they went with or even talking about UMD's.

Game availability on PSN is far greater than the under 10% figure you claimed it was. That was all that my reply was about.

[MagitekAngel]

The problems with the PSPGo are problems that are endemic to Sony's products in general: they are generally very high quality, but cost too much in relation to competitors and make use of proprietary "my way or the highway" accessories that alienate the market and ultimately shorten the lifespan of the product. This goes for their consoles, their media players, their cameras, and their televisions.

[Mord]

Emehr, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 5:45 PM, said:

akator, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 4:56 PM, said:

Retailers happily sell tons of other electronics that they don't directly sell media for. This includes cell phones, smart phones, music players, tablets, whatever. Every one of those retailers sells pre-paid cards for online purchases, such as iTunes and PSN cards.

There are (and never have been) expectations of supplemental media when it comes to cell phones, smart phones, music players, and tablets. It's a different market. And pre-paid cards do not directly correlate to physical media. You will never see a $20 pre-paid card marked down to 50% off in a bargain bin. It's just a voucher and has no real value. I'm not a retailer but if I were I would definitely have reservations about selling a video game system where I didn't see extra revenue from software.

If I were a retailer that specialized in video games, I would also expect to see supplimental sales after the console. If I were just any old electronics or department store retailer however, I wouldn't care. (It would mean less shelf space for things that often end up in a discount bin in exchange for a rack that held prepaid cards.)

The only store chains you'd have expected to see resisting the Go would have been gamestop and similar stores. But they tended to have some available anyway, and were more likely to discount them than department stores.

I think the real issue is that the Go was basically a PSP. It ran the same games, had pretty much the same hardware, but cost more, gave you less, and had fewer options than a PSP-3000. That while trying to go at it after the economy tanked. Yeah, wasn't going to fly.

[n8littlefield]

The main issue was probably price. The fact that it did exactly what the other PSP models did but with some extra storage didn't justify the price hike. When you combine that with the higher price of downloading a game vs buying a UMD it made no sense to pick one up (except as an emulation machine). At $150 with $10 downloadable retail games it would done have much better and probably still made more profit than the UMD versions given how few PSP retail UMDs were being sold new in the US.

Retailers don't care - they sell iPods which are exactly the same idea.

Edited by n8littlefield, Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:32 PM.

[onlysublime]

n8littlefield, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:32 PM, said:

Retailers don't care - they sell iPods which are exactly the same idea.

The difference is Apple products such as the iPod carry high profit margins so retailers make good money. Apple won't sell something without a minimum 30% profit margin. They got all their suppliers to live on thin margins because the suppliers know that even though the margin is thin, the sales volume is so great that they still make great money.

Gaming devices like the PSP Go have thinner margins. A retailer like Gamestop knows it doesn't make much selling the PS3 but will make up the difference selling software. It only takes a few dollars to package together a disc, box, and instructions for Uncharted 3 but you can then sell it for big profit. For a big retailer like Walmart, they don't care that the PSP Go has thin margins because it can bring someone into the store so that they buy groceries or clothes or something else. For Gamestop it makes less sense as the person can go into the store to buy the device and then never see the guy again.