Koller: digital will be an important part of the PSP’s future

Digital content is a hot issue right now in the world of handheld gaming, what with both the DS and the PSP being challenged by the fast-growing game library of the iPhone. Sony‘s John Koller is once again in the spotlight as he explains what’s in store for the PSP’s future. Are we finally looking at a non-UMD future?

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Digital content is a hot issue right now in the world of handheld gaming, what with both the DS and the PSP being challenged by the fast-growing game library of the iPhone. Sony‘s head of PlayStation Marketing John Koller is once again in the spotlight as he explains what’s in store for the PSP’s future.

Are we finally looking at a non-UMD future, as David Perry shamelessly rumor-mongered? Koller suavely avoids answering that directly, only saying that “I can’t really comment on that other than to reiterate the fact that the digital side of things for us on PSP is really important.” He does say, however, that digital content will be a big part of the future:

Holistically, the idea of digital distribution fits into the world as we go forward. […] So one of our big pushes this year is to be sure that the right kind of content and the right kind of games in particular are placed on the PlayStation Network for download on the PSP.

What Apple has done has really opened people’s eyes, the entire industry, about how games can be created, they don’t have to be created by 100-plus [member] development teams anymore. They can be created by one or two people and sell well.

So what kind of content are they going to push on the PlayStation Store? While they’re vying to release larger-sized games on the service, it seems they’re also interested in introducing more snack-type games, an idea Koller has introduced before.

You don’t need to have an epic. Consumers aren’t demanding epics from digitally distributed games, necessarily. They can be equally happy with games that are a few hours long that you can pick up for 10 minutes and put down for an hour.

Koller emphasizes that Sony is content-focused right now, and we’re going to be seeing a lot of new games after June, which also means we might be seeing more PSOne titles come along. As for concerns that the PSP isn’t selling very well lately, he merely remarks that we only have to wait until the new games come out, then people will start paying attention.

For the entire interview, you can follow the source link below.

• Sony: PSP was “under-supported,” UMD wasn’t brilliant, more snack-type games
• Koller responds to UMD-less PSP 2 rumor: partially true, the rest is ‘no comment’
• Sony to PSP devs: make games with bigger names, shorter play time

Via Wired