Sony has confirmed today that it will be offering ten free games to new PSPGo owners who register their systems online.
The games included in the deal are not some cheap ports either. Sony says the games included in the deal are: Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm Arctic Edge, Wipeout Pure, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice, FIFA 2010 World Cup, Need for Speed Shift, Gran Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines.
In the past, Sony has offered free games to early PSPGo adopters, and free games to users who upgraded from older PSP handhelds.
While Sony has yet to reveal hardware sales for the Go, the general consensus is that sales have been a complete flop, especially in the EU and UK.
When the system launched, Don McCabe, managing director of the UK game chain Chips said he expected the console to “fail miserably” in the market.
Result for: motorstorm
Sony Europe has confirmed that four games will be added to the PS3 Platinum line, which sell for GBP 19.99 or less.
The games are Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Killzone 2, Resistance 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, all of which sold minimum 400,000 units.
The official release date is not yet known, however October seems most likely. Many of the games already sell for close to the new MSRP.
Current ‘Platinum’ games are Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction, all of which were top sellers.
Gi.biz notes that an Amazon UK listing shows Grand Theft Auto IV will also join the Platinum line soon and is already selling for £16.99 via preorder.
Result for: motorstorm
Sony America senior VP of marketing Peter Dille, has spoken out today about the rampant piracy attached to the PSP handheld, saying that over 50 million units have been “compromised.”
“I’m convinced and we’re convinced that piracy has taken out a big chunk of our software sales on PSP,” Dille said. “It’s been a problem that the industry has to address together; it’s one that I think the industry takes very seriously, but we need to do something to address this because it’s criminal what’s going on, quite frankly.
“It’s not good for us, but it’s not good for the development community. We can look at data from BitTorrent sites from the day Resistance: Retribution goes on sale and see how many copies are being downloaded illegally, and it’s frankly sickening. We are spending a lot of time talking about how we can deal with that problem.”
Dille says that older hardware units are the most problematic but hopes that upcoming blockbuster titles such as Assassin’s Creed and MotorStorm should help struggling software sales.
“Those numbers are correct,” he added, speaking of the 50 million units figure. “There’s a lot of hardware out there; toothpaste is out of the tube. We’re not going to get that hardware back into the toothpaste container.
“I’m not naive, but I do think that most people are inherently honest. We learned a lot from the music business, and it became so easy and so common to download illegal music - everyone was doing it. It’s almost like people lost sight with the fact that, well, ‘If everyone’s doing it, then it can’t be that bad.’
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