Fresh Attempt at PSP Movies Coming in 2007

Posted on Monday 18th December 2006 at 21:17 by karasuman

Never one to take the market's resounding no at face value, Sony is making another stab at selling PSP owners portable movies. Sometime next year, a video download service similar to Apple's iTunes will allow PSP owners to download movies specifically for use with their PSP.

Few details have been released, but it is known that movies must be first downloaded to the user's computer, then transferred to a memory stick to play on the PSP. There is no word of which, if any, studios will be participants (presumably, Sony has at least someone lined up), but Hollywood can rest assured that this move will not exacerbate copyright infringement. Sony, always hard at work to implement draconian and even damaging copy protecting measures, will ensure that only one copy of the movie can exist per paid download.

Since PSP owners can already transfer DVDs they own to their computer and from their to their PSP, I don't see how this is much different from the failed UMD strategy. This time, users won't even have a convenient case with a pretty picture in which to store their purchase, and with DVDs frequently available for very low prices, I can't imagine an incentive to buy a virtual copy that can only be watched on my PSP instead of the real thing that I can watch anywhere.

Source: GameSpot

Posted in: Gaming Industry News

Written by	karasuman
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Comments

Aether Master	Comment 1: 2006-12-18 21:47
	What's the point of watching movies on that teeny screen? You can probably get a better and possibly bigger portable DVD player for less than $250. I think it's funny how the UMD failed, but I suppose if you have money to waste on your PSP, go ahead and buy the movies.
GamblingCat	Comment 2: 2006-12-18 23:47
	Aether Master makes a good point, it seems that PSP is still in a hole atm.
Barrylocke	Comment 3: 2006-12-19 14:23
	Quote (Aether Master @ 18th December 2006 16:47) What's the point of watching movies on that teeny screen? You can probably get a better and possibly bigger portable DVD player for less than $250. I think it's funny how the UMD failed, but I suppose if you have money to waste on your PSP, go ahead and buy the movies. Forget probably, you can easily get a better portable DVD system. I stand by what I say with the DS having the better games right now, (though PSP is improving some what) and that I don't really want a system for its music/video capabilities, that's more like icing to a cake.
Hamedo	Comment 4: 2006-12-19 15:08
	The PS fails at life. I don't think the resurgence of the movie aspect of the system will be able to save it.
BDZ	Comment 5: 2006-12-19 18:19
	PSP movie downloads might sell if they were dirt cheap, like $3.50. It would help too if PSPs had some sort of video output. I agree though, its a lost cause.
Cloud_Strife510	Comment 6: 2006-12-19 18:47
	As Sony struggles more and more, they sink further down into the quicksand they decided to jump right into. will Sony manage to salvage anything?
FallingHeart	Comment 7: 2006-12-19 20:40
	I think that people are being a little too harsh on the PSP and Sony. Clearly, the PSP did not live up quite to what people had expected, but people kind of automatically declare anything Sony does to revive it a futile attempt. I mean, at least this shows they aren't too busy constantly saying dumb things to think about their fanbase.
Hamedo	Comment 8: 2006-12-19 20:55
	You almost make a point, Fallingheart. Almost. Think of it this way. The PS is a failed product. To boost it's sales to at least try to grab back the money you sunk into it, do you: A. Make better games, which is... um, what the primary focus of the product is and the biggest reason people bought it? -or- B. Make even more pheripheral material for it, though said material has already dismally failed once, people don't buy the product for said material, and said material can be watched on better screens that are also protable for much less money? Sony chose option B. I think that they will look back at the decision with dismay.
Del S	Comment 9: 2006-12-19 21:20
	Quote (Hamedo @ 19th December 2006 20:55) You almost make a point, Fallingheart. Almost. Think of it this way. The PS is a failed product... Why the hell do you keep calling it the PS you moron? That refers to the original Playstation in most circles. Does your private little world have something different going on there? I'm really getting tired of people paying out on bets before the horses leave the stall. It's not over until it's over, and it's over when Sony run out of even stupid ideas. Sure, this one's dumb, but it's not even had a chance yet. They should, however, focus on games and not additional functions. I'd wonder why they're not learning lessons from mistakes to try and go with something new, but hey, doing the same thing that didn't work last time has "worked" for politicians for years.
Rangers51	Comment 10: 2006-12-19 21:21
	Quote (Hamedo @ 19th December 2006 15:55) You almost make a point, Fallingheart. Almost. So do you. Sony does not have the final decision on what games are made. Sony is not Nintendo, and has never survived on first-party development. Perhaps if they did more first-party work. it would be less of an issue, but come on - hindsight is 20/20. Tell Sony that before the Playstation became a phenomenon and maybe they'd look at things differently now. Perhaps they could be doing more to make the third-parties make more games, but what would that be, exactly? Sony can only do what they're doing, albeit maybe with fewer horrible marketing ploys.
karasuman	Comment 11: 2006-12-19 21:26
	Quote (Rangers51 @ 19th December 2006 16:21) Sony does not have the final decision on what games are made. Sony is not Nintendo, and has never survived on first-party development. Perhaps if they did more first-party work. it would be less of an issue, but come on - hindsight is 20/20. Tell Sony that before the Playstation became a phenomenon and maybe they'd look at things differently now. Perhaps they could be doing more to make the third-parties make more games, but what would that be, exactly? Sony can only do what they're doing, albeit maybe with fewer horrible marketing ploys. And, really, who wants more Sony games? Legend of Dragoon on the PSP? No thanks. As Lasz mentioned in chat, the PSP seems to have an inordinate amount of developer support considering that it's main competition, the Nintendo DS, is selling so much better. If Sony sells their movie downloads for under $10 and/or allow the user to view them on a computer, I'll back off and say that this is a smart(er) move (than UMDS). Sony's real problem doesn't seem to be anticipating what content people want--they have a problem understanding what consumers are willing to spend on their product. The PSP is too expensive. The UMDs were hugely expensive--they cost more than actual DVDs sometimes. The games aren't exactly cheap, and the accessories run you a pretty penny, too. The PlayStation name is only going to go so far before Sony needs to offer something that's worth your first born child before expecting you to pay that much.
Aether Master	Comment 12: 2006-12-20 00:29
	Don't worry, guys, the PSP has 300 games this Holiday season! ...Too bad 295 of those games really suck... Heh, I read that in a magazine. I can imagine that the fanboys will be getting their PSPs ready for Crisis Core. That is, unless Square Enix decides not to port it to the US. And, then, we'd have some angry fanboys. Even the PS3 is relying too heavily upon its third-party developers. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the majority of games and even those that have been successful have been ports or alterations of past Playstation games.
Barrylocke	Comment 13: 2006-12-20 12:07
	Well, the PSP does have Lumines and Loco Roco for originality, but Aether Master makes a good point.
Hamedo	Comment 14: 2006-12-20 13:04
	Quote Why the hell do you keep calling it the PS you moron? It's a typo I commonly make, Del. The same as I usually end up typing jsut rather than just when I'm in a hurry. So nice of you to resort to name calling because of it. I'd expect better from a staff member. Quote Don't worry, guys, the PSP has 300 games this Holiday season! ...Too bad 295 of those games really suck... Exactly, Aether! Why not focus on better games, rather than movies nobody wants? Quote Sony's real problem doesn't seem to be anticipating what content people want--they have a problem understanding what consumers are willing to spend on their product. The PSP is too expensive. The UMDs were hugely expensive--they cost more than actual DVDs sometimes. The games aren't exactly cheap, and the accessories run you a pretty penny, too. The PlayStation name is only going to go so far before Sony needs to offer something that's worth your first born child before expecting you to pay that much. Nail. On. The. Head. Well done chou. Quote Sony does not have the final decision on what games are made. Sony is not Nintendo, and has never survived on first-party development. Perhaps if they did more first-party work. That's your answer, Josh? That Sony can't help but have crappy games on their consoles because it's all the 3rd party developers' fault? I'll concede that Sony relies heavily on 3rd party dev to crank out the games, but do you really believe that Sony has no quality control protocol in place to keep utter turds from being released? Or do you think that they just give the stamp of approval to anything that a dev creates and slap the Sony label on it?
Rangers51	Comment 15: 2006-12-20 14:04
	Quote (Hamedo @ 20th December 2006 08:04) That's your answer, Josh? That Sony can't help but have crappy games on their consoles because it's all the 3rd party developers' fault? I'll concede that Sony relies heavily on 3rd party dev to crank out the games, but do you really believe that Sony has no quality control protocol in place to keep utter turds from being released? Or do you think that they just give the stamp of approval to anything that a dev creates and slap the Sony label on it? Yes, I do really believe that. And I'd be surprised if you didn't, since you're the one railing loudly about the fact that the PSP has nothing but "turds" as you so eloquently put it. Can you actually have it both ways? But I'm not going to say that the games are all awful. I don't have a PSP, and I've only played one for about 15 minutes when a guy at my old job bought his on launch day and brought it in for us to mess with. So it's beyond my ability to say. Surely you have a PSP and are commenting from a position of first-hand knowledge, and not just what you read in magazines and online, in which case I'll concede the point (but it's not the alpha and omega of points here anyway). The simple fact is that Sony has tried to be different than Nintendo in handheld strategy. It hasn't worked out very well so far. But if Sony had tried to do everything just like Nintendo, people would be complaining that they were being derivative and bringing nothing new to the market. Sony's in a no-win situation with their current offerings, and they're doing what they can with their expertise. They can't snap their fingers and say "MAKE BETTER GAMES!" to the third parties and just expect it to magically happen. They can do that for offerings that directly work based on their hardware, because that's their expertise. Now, obviously a better way to move units when you have limited control over the software would be to reduce the cost of the hardware, which everyone thinks should happen. I don't know why Sony hasn't done it, and neither does anyone else, really. But that's a totally different issue than what's coming up here.
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