SCEA: Piracy adversely affecting NA PSP sales

psp-white-thumbThe words “PSP” and “piracy” are once again being mentioned in the same sentence by a Sony guy. SCEA’s Rob Dyer recently admitted that yes, even though the PSP is putting up big sales numbers in Japan, it’s not doing so hot in North America thanks to piracy.

 

psp-black-back

 

 

 

The words “PSP” and “piracy” are once again being mentioned in the same sentence by a Sony guy. SCEA’s Rob Dyer recently admitted that yes, even though the PSP is putting up big sales numbers in Japan, it’s not doing so hot in North America thanks to piracy.

 

 

It’s killing it in Japan. [In North America] you have Peace Walker that I think is going to do very good numbers. You’re going to have some phenomenal support from Square. They have some great stuff coming. You have some great stuff from Capcom. Again, it’s a lot of stuff from Japan…
We have EA Sports stuff that’s going to be coming out. You’re going to have Toy Story 3 on the PSP that’s coming out. There’s a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I’m not going to bullshit you on that.

“That’s been the biggest problem, no question about it,” he told Gamasutra. “It’s become a very difficult proposition to be profitable, given the piracy right now. And the fact that the category shrunk inside of retail.”

 

Dyer also explained that Sony has some software that should help minimize piracy on the handheld, but conceded that it probably won’t stop it completely.

 

“We also believe that there’s a way that you will be able to, not stop, but slow down the piracy in the first 30 to 60 days from a tech perspective,” he said. “There’s some code that you can embed that we’ve been helping developers implement in order to get people at least to see a 60-day shelf life before it gets hacked and it shows up on BitTorrent.”

 

Even with the piracy problem still hounding the PSP, Dyer noted that PSP owners still have a lot to look forward to. “[In North America] you have Peace Walker… Some phenomenal support from Square… Some great stuff from Capcom. Again, it’s a lot of stuff from Japan.

 

“We have EA Sports stuff that’s going to be coming out. You’re going to have Toy Story 3 on the PSP that’s coming out. There’s a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I’m not going to bullshit you on that.”

 

 

 

Via [Gamasutra]

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *