Sony UK Exec Says No to Smaller, Lighter PSP

April 1st, 2007, 20:47 Posted By: wraggster

news from Daily tech

Earlier this month, word of a smaller, lighter PlayStation Portable slipped the lips of Sony UK boss Ray Maguire. Specifically, Maguire said that the current PSP is just the “first iteration” of the handheld, and that an improved version will eventually follow.

Now, just two weeks after his initial comments, Maguire is taking it all back. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he says, “As we sit here today, there is no next iteration of the PSP.”

“If you're referring to what was reported some weeks ago, I was referring to the fact that that's what we do as a company,” said Maguire. “We R&D everything. You only have to look at PlayStation and PlayStation 2 to see that's always in our mind.”

The PSP is constantly compared with the handheld market’s current leader, the Nintendo DS. Consumers may be expecting a revised PSP because Nintendo revised the original DS to the DS Lite, a smaller, lighter version of the original. Following Nintendo’s slick redesign, sales of the DS Lite skyrocketed, gaining the acceptance from even casual gamers.

Maguire speaks on the constant comparisons between PSP and DS Lite, saying, “They are two different devices for two different markets. It's comparing apples and oranges again, but because they are both portable it's probably a natural thing to do. The marketplace that we need to get into is the PS3 connectivity market.”

He continues, “From a PSP situation we have a wider split of third-party versus first-party than our competitors do, who are very much first-party developers. We've been putting quite a lot of energy behind PS3, now we'll be able to split some of those resources and go back to the PSP to make sure we've got some compelling games coming. As a criticism, yes, perhaps part of that is true. But we have a solution in place.”

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