Sony PSP Go and cheaper cost of developer tools

Expect Sony to rebound in microtransactions shortly with a PSP Go Phone…

I see the PSP Go and the switch to all direct download games as a stepping stone towards a Sony Ericcson PSP Phone. Yes, I too laughed at the notion of a phone competing with dedicated handheld devices.

But that’s before I found out that EA is porting the excellent Red Alert 3 over the iPhone!! Note that EA never thought it worthwhile to make a version of Red Alert for the PSP.

And then look at the news today, Sega of America’s president and CEO, Simon Jeffery, just left his position to head up the exclusive iPhone game developer ngmoco, who have a reputation of pushing the iPhone’s hardware to deliver killer app titles. Simon Jeffery is no chump. He is hailed by many gamers for his critical role in pushing through KOTOR, and many other killer app games as president of Lucas Arts.

Many many game developers who’ve commented already noted that the iPhone 3G is almost as powerful as the PSP! But the next gen device, the 3GS takes the hardware to a whole another level, it uses a next gen GPU using Open GL 2.0, a much faster CPU and has double the ram, 256 mb! Basically it’s specs blow the PSP’s out of the water (which is expected since the PSP is almost 5 years old).

Currently the 3GS is not a big deal, the iPhone has a marketshare of 50 million, same as the PSP but achieved this in just one third of the time period, but all of them own the last gen hardware. It’ll take some time for enough people to own the newer 3GS. But in an years time, I expect there to be atleast 10 million such owners, and premium games are going to be made to cater to the 3GS owners only, pushing the gaming performance to levels better than anything on current handhelds.

The sheer convenience of being able to play high quality games on a device that you always have with you, whereever you go, and can also take hiqh quality pictures, and videos, and look up directions, browse the internet and make phone calls, is not to be underestimated.

That’s why I fully expect that Sony is already feeling some heat from all the mobile game developers switching over to the iPhone development. How could it not, when the 3G is already lining up big titles like Red Alert 3, and is even getting the president of Sega and the father of KOTOR to switch over to exclusive iPhone game development.

Combine all this with the current upcry of iPhone gamers demanding someone make an iphone shell that sports TWO ANALOG NUBS and two shoulder buttons, now the the recent 3.0 firmware upgrade fully gives apps and games the ability to make use of any hardware shells made for the iPhone, and the rumors that multiple hardware makers are interested in doing just that, in order to capture the sales of the entire iPhone gaming community in one swoop.

I fully expect that Sony is already hard at work coming up with an all in one mobile device and phone, that is capable of playing all the same games that the PSP Go is capable of playing, and serving all the same functions that the iPhone is capable of serving. Don’t forget that Sony is already a major player in the phone industry with it’s beloved Sony Ericcson phones. And this Ericcson brand of phones is feeling quite a bit of heat from the iPhone’s success, same as most phone makers.

They actually should’ve released it this past E3. By making a Go phone, they could’ve put in all sorts of heavy duty features into the Go Phone like an OLED screen, a 5 megapixel camera, a 720p video camera, dual analog nubs, GPS etc, to bring up manufacturing costs to $600 (instead of $250 for the PSP Go) and still have been able to release it for FREE with a 2 year contract thanks to carrier subsidies. That would have sold like crazy, increased the PSP’s market significantly put a stop to bleeding out of the Sony Ericcson brand line marketshare to the iPhone. They also would have made huge amount of money by selling tv shows, movies, and later on apps and ebooks (something that they PSN store already offers, but doesn’t get many sales from).

It would been a huge boon to gamers as well, as they would be able to get a PSP that can do every single thing the iPhone can do, offers even more advanced features like an OLED screen, 720p video and a 5 megapixel camera, and would have been able to access the PSN store, and play games online via 3G from ANYWHERE in the world. But I think this will happen yet.