Is Sony obsessed with killing homebrew PSP game development? |
Loading ...I think Sony is taking an all too RIAAesq point of view on homebrew gaming. Having fans creating games of their own doesn’t diminish or encroach on their market share, but being greedy very likely will. One could argue that a very small percentage of people who will spend time building and making their own games buy any less professionally produced games. In fact, they probably buy more.
As for the subject of emulators? If I have already bought the game for Super NES, why shouldn’t I be able to use an emulator to play that game on the PSP? There is no legal precedent, at least that I’m aware of, that prevents that. Once I buy content please let me enjoy it for personal use and not red tape me up one side and down the other.
In response to questions about Sony’s stance on home-brew PSP game development, a company representative said Sony “has provided a broad technology palette for PlayStation Portable game developers and content producers with the ability to use storage capabilities like the Memory Stick.”
So use the storage of the Memory Stick, that’s their response? Gamers via 1up.com are cutting through the spin:
“Sony is determined to cripple the PSP end-user experience at every opportunity,” said 1up’s Parish. “It only reads a limited selection of music formats, (user-created) video can’t run at the system’s native resolution, and now the company is obsessed with quashing home-brew development.
I would offer that it’s better to have people interested in what you are doing than not at all. And if they are interested enough to build hacks and mods and to post on the internet about it, you should find a way as a company to connect and embrace the fans instead of shun them.
Our PSP hasn’t been getting much action lately, in fact, the battery was dead and I just needed to recharge it. Every time I visit a retail store with games I check out the PSP game section (as well as Gamecube, Xbox, Nintendo DS, etc) and haven’t really been too psyched by any games, but I’m sure there are more games out there I’d like to buy. Take that back, Area 51 for the Xbox currently has my eye. Anybody played that? Does it rock? Suck?
But who am I kidding trying to write anything to Sony? Despite the fact that I’ve bought almost every portable and console gaming system since the NES along with tons of games over the years, Sony isn’t going to listen to me.
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[…] They were bagged for hiding a rootkit in some CDs, they’ve been playing a neverending game of cat and mouse with PSP homebrew developers, the PS3 was seen by many as too expensive at E3 and now the news that they might try to ban the sale of preowned PS3 games?: It seems that Sony is planning to adopt a licensing system that will mean gamers won’t own the PS3 titles that they’ve paid money for. Instead, they will only be purchasing the licence to play the game and that the software itself will still be Sony property - meaning that the disc won’t be the customer’s to sell. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Sony not to allow pre-owned PS3 games sales? — May 24, 2006 @ 7:59 pm PST
[…] Sony is starting to run out of the number of flop hardware projects they can release and maintain customer confidence. Reports are that they are having trouble defining the PSP which is sad because the PSP is a beautifully designed device. For a portable gaming machine I think it’s the best design I’ve seen to date, but it has an identity crisis and is hopelessly lost fighting the DRM game. If Sony had only embraced the homebrew crowd as I wrote here well over a year ago, they’d have much less of an identity problem with this device: I would offer that it’s better to have people interested in what you are doing than not at all. And if they are interested enough to build hacks and mods and to post on the internet about it, you should find a way as a company to connect and embrace the fans instead of shun them. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Sony starting to look like Sega — August 10, 2006 @ 10:31 am PST
Sony is getting scared about the amount and size of the psp download market. They were originally thinking they could wipe it out but I think they soon wil have to embrace the market and compete by bring out there own downloads
Comment by Andrew Seaford — May 21, 2008 @ 5:58 am PST
It’s not homebrew that’s the problem. Piracy’s the problem. To play any PSP game, all I have to do is copy an iso from dozens of sources across the web to my memory card and run it on my custom firmware. Viola, I have access to the entire library of PSP titles, but they load faster, are more manageable, I can carry many around with me at once, and there’s nothing Sony can do to stop this… Short of disabling homebrew/custom firmware on their devices.
Also, as much as I like to try out the occasional neato app that someone put together (those quirky “homebrew” apps we all nobly reference as the reason Sony should allow homebrew), the fact of the matter is the most downloaded homebrew apps are, well, emulators. When I can keep the entire NES, Gameboy, and Gameboy Color library in their entirety on a 4 GB memory card (gaming on the go, ftw) there is a clear problem. Nintendo piracy probably won’t affect Sony directly, but when developers look at the PSP and see that it is the easiest platform for software piracy, not only for current-gen PSP games, but also for every title that developer has made in the past, they question whether or not they should continue to support such a handheld.
In short, it’s not homebrew that PSP is obsessed with killing. It’s piracy. Homebrew is just a casualty.
>>Comment 3. They were originally thinking they could wipe it out but I think they soon will have to embrace the market and compete by bring out there own downloads
Sony has had an online store with PSP and PS1 software downloads for PSP for a little while now. I think I read about a study (I am not entirely sure) saying that people download more due to its convenience than the fact that it’s free. Whatever’s more convenient wins. In this way, a Sony store that sells its entire library is similar to iTunes: If everyone can find anything in one place, they will pay for it, and they won’t go hunting for a pirated copy. So if Sony embraces the download market, then yes, piracy will *probably* be less of an issue. If it’s less of an issue, then maybe they can lighten up on homebrew (although I’m sure they will continue to stifle it as long as any amount of physical-media sales money runs through their veins).
Comment by Joe — June 30, 2008 @ 9:17 pm PST