Smack Down: devs discouraged from making PSP games, piracy too high

Smack Down - Image 1The PSP’s been getting a lot of flak since last year. I often hear the questions “where are all the games?” and “what the hell is Sony doing?” (I mostly hear it from you guys :p.) Maybe these words from Laurent Benadiba, CEO of Smack Down Productions, can give some insight on the situation. At least, from a developer’s point of view.

Smack Down - Image 1The PSP’s been getting a lot of flak since last year. I often hear the questions “where are all the games?” and “what the hell is Sony doing?” (I mostly hear it from you guys :p.)

Maybe these words from Laurent Benadiba, CEO of Smack Down Productions, can give some insight on the situation. At least, from a developer’s point of view in Europe.

Benadiba has the following sentiments. First, Sony isn’t putting much attention to the PSP – something other developers have expressed as well.

I still believe there’s potential, but it’s like self-confidence – if you trust yourself, maybe others will trust you. If you don’t trust yourself, nobody will trust you.

I think that’s what’s happened with the PSP – Sony released the product, but they never put enough of a push behind it. Games, ads, better shelf placement – trying to make an effort. I think it was also released at a time when they were still very focused on the PlayStation 3, trying to get it out of the door, that they slightly forgot about it.

Also, the platform needs more ground-breaking games. Unfortunately, piracy is just too rampant to encourage devs to make games:

I think the piracy level is much higher. There’s a lot of piracy on the PSP I think. I don’t have numbers, but you see people playing on the train, they have empty carts, and this is a big problem.

If it’s pretty easy to crack it down, then people won’t buy the games, and if people don’t buy the games, publishers won’t make them – so it doesn’t encourage publishers to make games.

Lastly, the PSP just doesn’t have the pull to make devs create games for it, when we’re talking about cold hard cash:

The other day we were with a publisher, and trying to figure out a business model for a PSP game. It was a big IP, a big license, a top five racing game, and we couldn’t work it out, how we could break even. Because there are so few sales on the PSP in Europe now that you have to make a huge title on a small budget just to break even.

It’s discouraging publishers from making PSP games – maybe they could do what Nintendo did, and make lots of first party games? Push the level up…

Don’t let that get you down though. The rumor mill’s been chucking out a lot for the PSP lately, and most of them are good news. I expect we’ll see a lot of focus for the PSP from Sony this year. If not, well, Dissidia‘s coming out this year. That should be enough to last me for a long, long while.


PSP Galore:

Via GamesIndustry.biz

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