Hacking the PSP Blog

Sony's Jack Tretton: Wii is a "lollipop", 360 an "unreliable cook"

GamePro's Vicious Sid recently sat down with Sony Computer Entertainment's Jack Tretton at E3 to discuss the PSP, PS3, backward compatibility ...and how he would describe each game console as a meal. Insights galore!  

GamePro: Before E3, there were all these rumors about the redesigned PSP [featuring a flash drive] so I have to admit I was a little let down when I heard it was only going to be thinner and lighter. When I got my hands on one, though, I was impressed...though it still seemed like an incremental improvement. Why not embed a flash drive?

Jack Tretton: I think we're talking about a short period of time here. Playstation Portable has only been out for a couple of years, and I think it will continue to evolve over time. We are absolutely thrilled with the PSP and we love it. We think it's state-of-the-art technology and we think these improvements take that technology and just give you an updated form factor. But clearly we haven't abandoned the 25 million consumers that are fans of it.

I think one of the risks you run into when you get into [embedding flash memory into a new PSP model] is, what happens to the people who already bought it? And are you going to get the development community to make UMD based games? We have to make sure that anything we do, as far as the evolution of hardware, doesn't leave consumers behind. You can talk about price all day long, but if you don't get the features you need for the long term it's a bait and switch. The good news is you get the price you want and the bad news is the technology has been abandoned. I don't think we ever want to do that to consumers.

Thats just a taster of the full interview. Check out the full text here....

Vicious Sid
July 17, 2007

Source: GamePro

PS3 sales hit 1M in Japan

Back in January, Sony announced it had achieved its goal of shipping 2 million PlayStation 3s worldwide. The company achieved the goal several weeks late, when it shipped its 1 millionth unit to the Japanese market. However, many were skeptical of Sony's claims of success, since the figures were only for units shipped to retailers, not sold to consumers.

Nearly six months to the day later, Sony has finally sold its 1 millionth PS3 in Japan. Reuters quotes Famitsu publisher and Japanese game-industry stat tracker Enterbrain as reporting that Sony's console reached the sales milestone on July 15.

Japan is the last major gaming region to reach the 1 million sold milestone. North America was the first, with nearly 700,000 PS3s being sold during the 2006 holiday season alone, and early last month, the PS3 hit the 1 million mark in the PAL territories of Europe and Australia. The PS3 launched in North America and Japan in November 2006, and went on sale across PAL territories in March 2007.

Read the full story here...

Tom Magrino
July 18, 2007

Source: GameSpot

Pachter: E3 Was A 'Terrible Disappointment'

While Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter had previously said that imminent price wars was to be the "key takeaway" from this year's E3, with the show now over, Pachter more glumly has said "the key takeaway from this year’s E3 was that the ESA made a mistake in downsizing the show."

"In past years," said Pachter, "publishers and console manufacturers used E3 to address the needs of their core constituents: media, retail, investors, and consumers. By choosing to eliminate any potential for a consumer element to the show, the ESA chased away much of the television media. By scheduling the show two months later than in the past, retailers stayed away. By scheduling the show during the calendar quarter financial quiet period (Microsoft, Sony, Activision and THQI did not meet with investors), only limited access was provided for buy and sell side analysts."

Read the full article here...

Brandon Boyer
July 16, 2007

Source: Gamasutra