CrunchGear

I think if anything right now, Sony would do best to cut it’s losses and try to work with the market, that being iTunes, and see if it can grind something out. Many would remind us to look at the HP + music iPod venture which did not do as well as HP hoped, but I think the problem with that experiment was that iPod is fundamentally Apple or Mac in culture, while HP is fundamentally printers or your dad’s computer in culture. The two don’t really match.

I don’t know how well Sony would do trying to match up with Apple, or if Apple would have anything to benefit, but along with every other Sony proprietary format, building an entirely new/old system up to serve a dwindling base of consumers is a sign of desperation and/or lack of thought.

On second thought though, Apple and Sony are fundamentally competing over the same user base, a smart/young consumer who wants to watch movies on a portable device. Maybe if Apple or Sony combined their efforts and made the media formats the same for both, allowing Joe Schmoe iPod and PSP user to freely switch movies from device to device (or have it on both without having to buy it twice).

All in all, I think Sony is failing with the UMD idea, and setting up a UMD store is not going to help Sony. Proprietary formats aren’t dumb, you just need a successful and popular device first (see Apple iPod).

Here is how I predict things will go for the gaming market in the next few years:

-Sony will win the console market with PS3
-Nintendo will win the hand-held market with Nintendo DS
-Microsoft will release a handheld because its fear has extended from the living room to our hands room

During this war, the following casualties will be reported:
-Sony will phase out its brick they call an hand held (download service being the first to come to a “server not found” some cold night)
-Nintendo, although with great Wii sales, realizes it can only be a number two with current specs, so releases a G2 version with specs close to those of PS3… now the war of has reached new levels
-ipod comes out with a G8 version which finally comes close to the idea “all in one” portable, works as both a phone, backup storage device, video and music solution… only problem is… they lost their dominance to some yet unknown entity run from some guys basement
-Microsoft will get a new CEO who gives a damn about the bottom line and they will bow out of both the hand held and console market, re-invest this money into the Zune and from then on… the first question people will ask for eternity is “Do you accept this Squirt”. By the way, M$ also has a stroke of “genius” and replaces its brown Zune with optional purple with yellow stripes coloration!

The war was long, it was expensive and ultimately - with my CrunchGear D40… photographed every step of the way, Jon retires a millionaire and gets calls from Sylvester Stallone’ mother about other predictions far into the future. People all around the world now visit CrunchGear as their “gadget info site” with CNet being a distant second.

Everything becomes as it should be :-)
Jon

Aww Jon, you forgot to account for the Apple gaming system that will inevitably be released!

I think Sony needs to start salvaging the PSP. To be honest, they have a fantastic product with some killer titles. However, they seem hell-bent on denying the user’s right to do whatever they like with it.

With that comment I’m referring to the home-brew crowd. I used to run a few home-brew apps, and wrote a couple myself. However, with every release of the firmware, Sony is determined to lock us out of the firmware. Even with the best of hacks, I dont think we ever really had reliable kernel-mode access.

If Sony were to embrace the roll-your-own crowd, PSP could experience a resurgence, as people can get a wide variety of apps for the PSP. I’m guessing their argument has something to do with revenue, but let’s face it …. theyre losing on that front already.

I’ve got lots of reference materials on my PSP, so I use it constantly. I’ve never been much of a gamer, I bought it for its utility. With that said, as time went on and I was using it more and more, I decided I might as well get some games for it.

In the last month I’ve purchased 2 games for it (aside from GTA which is needed for home-brew, I dont really play it) just because I _always_ have it on me.

Long story short, if Sony embraced the “do whatever you want with it” kind of attitude, the PSP would become that much more a “must have” item.

Jon, I have come to the conclusion after a full 8 hours of subconsciousness that Apple will simply purchase a license to re-distribute Nintendo DS games via their itunes with the simple limitation that you cannot save the progress of your game ;-)

Nintendo DS shares half/half with Apple when ever somebody buys a 5$ game from itunes (which will be renamed ilife to account for all the new stuff they will ad). Nintendo reaches a new audience without cannibalizing on existing sales, Apple makes new money without having to invest anything and the consumer wins because they can try out games without having to commit to a 30$ cartridge.

Everybody wins!

Jon

I would love to see Sony work out a deal with I-Pod. I am not a gamer and bought my primarily for the ability to use it as a MP3 player and to watch video when I travel for work, the games were just a bonus. The ability to use it for the reasons I bought it for were so cumbersome that I broke down and bought an IPod video. But if Sony could allow me to play music and video from ITunes, or something like it, it would renew my interest in the PSP. I would probably even start buying new games to play when I carried it with me, something I don’t do now.