Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime had a few words today for the PSPgo, even claiming the new handheld may have a “fundamental concept problem.”
In an interview with the Washington Post, Fils-Aime says the PSPgo, which removes the UMD drive, has a “fundamental concept problem in terms of ‘Who’s it for?’ and ‘What’s the benefit?’ ”
Continuing on, Fils-Aime makes sure to be respectful. “I have the utmost respect for all our competitors. But it’s interesting to try and answer the consumer question of ‘what’s in it for me?’ in that product.”
Sony recently stated that overall PSP sales were up 300 percent since the launch of the Go, despite the fact that many retailers criticized the device and its effect on retailer margins.
Result for: margins
A new Juniper research report has stated that despite increased interest in mobile gaming, sales of games have “flatlined across North America and Western Europe”.
The total retail value of the mobile gaming market is expected to almost double in the next 5 years from $5.4 billion USD to $10 billion USD however “limited on-portal revenue share for publishers is driving some away from the sector and poor games marketing fails to capture customer attention.”
“The revenue share offered by Apple to games publishers is incredibly attractive,” said Dr Windsor Holden, author of the report, speaking about how iPhone gaming has helped bring increased interest to the market.
“The danger is that if operators do not respond with a similar business model, publishers faced with low margins may simply exit Java completely, thereby reducing consumer choice in the longer term.”
Result for: margins
According to co-founder Chris DeWolfe, MySpace is considering producing its own portable media player, one that will match its extremely popular MySpace Music streaming service.
Although he would not commit to whether a device is in development, he did say it was very “possible.” For now however, the company wants to focus on its Music service which streams millions of songs, ad-subsidized of course, for free.
“If anything, we’ll be accretive to iPod sales,” DeWolfe said, speaking of the service’s linking to pay-for track. “Unless we develop a device,” he added however.
Apple’s focus however, has always been on sales of hardware and not so much on the sale of tracks or videos as the margins are very small. MySpace is interested in bringing more traffic to its pages for ad revenue.
