Sony, Please Don’t Show a Port Addiction

Sony is slowly showing its hand with the still rumored application store for the Sony PSP Go. With the announcement of Fieldrunners being ported from Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch to the PSP Go by developers Subatomic Studios, Sony is already beginning to show a trend that it needs to curb immediately.

The price is still standing strong at $249 with no additional information yet. Though it would be a coup if Sony announced that they were going to drop the price to $199, equaling the PSP-3000’s existing bundles. That would be some excellent marketing on Sony’s part. Anger gamers and gain the apprehension of various media outlets before dropping the bomb that “Hey we were just kidding, thanks for all the publicity.”

What Sony doesn’t need to do is start pulling existing developers and tell them to port their games to the PSP Go. It would be nice to see a dedicated Sony-brand application store rather than having to go through PSN or the PC to get games on the new system. Given the number of applications on iTunes, Sony could be relatively successful in grabbing the best of the bunch to port their games. But there lies some honest truth, Sony wants quick cash.

Zeno Colaço, Sony Europe’s head of developer relations, stated that to get more games onto the digital distribution wagon, there is a new development system for digitally distributed titles that rids of the concept approval phase, shortens the QA time, and pushes for lower price points. Well isn’t that already easy if you’re just porting a game from one of the most popular products already on the market?

If Sony Europe is planning this trend to increase digital distributed games, Sony America also needs to follow. But don’t spend the first year of the PSP Go porting titles. Sony needs to spend that time showing the public, gamers, and the media that the PSP Go can do everything that has been claimed about it. They need to announce their application store or at the very least revamp Media Go to work specifically for the PSP Go and not their phones plus the PSP.

During the first year, Sony needs to release five new games each month made specifically for their new digital distribution model. Why only five? Simple, so that the games are using the abilities of the PSP Go and keep the total price low so gamers will purchase all of them. Also, five games is easier to QA than 150 a month. It really makes me a little afraid that the first year of the PSP Go could be 80% ports, either from PSOne or iTunes App Store, and 20% will be new intellectual properties.

Sony should know that there are hundreds of developers out there trying to make a name for themselves. Of course, not all of those ideas are catered for the PSP Go, but given some time those developers could amaze everyone. The best move so far was to lower the price of the development kits by 80%, but with one of the first titles for the digital distribution model being a port, the outlook isn’t so bright.

Please Sony, don’t be idiots. Don’t put all your support into ports or just trying to get a large number of downloadable titles ready for the October release. Think about what you’re doing and make the PSP Go successful out of the gate, not two years later and claim it was a success just based on the numbers. The PlayStation Portable can still be traded in and sold.