EA: Sony must take action on PSP

[T2k]

http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=24253

Sony must take action on PSP, says EA’s Gardner
13:00, Aug 11th by Neil Long

PSP has come under fire from super-publisher EA this week in yet another PR headache for Sony.
As the criticism and negative press for PlayStation 3 continues to mount, Sony has the fresh challenge of dealing with disgruntled EA executive VP and COO of worldwide studios David Gardner, who believes that PSP is falling behind rival Nintendo DS.

“I don’t think Sony can afford to sit back,” Gardner told MCV. “I think they still have things they can do with the price and performance of the machine – things that they need to address.”

He went on to reveal that the strong performance of DS has now led EA to re-consider its priorities.

“There’s no doubt that EA has historically bet more on PSP. I think we were excited by the technology, but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun. We must never forget that what we need to focus on is fun and so EA is putting more effort behind DS games – and creative ones that really take advantage of the hardware.”

PSP has only recently been overtaken by DS in terms of hardware sales (MCV 07/07) and, with DS titles performing strongly, Sony’s handheld seems in need of a serious boost.

- A full interview with David Gardner is to be published in next week's print edition of MCV

 

[mwgiii]

The PSP has been getting murdered in Japan. The quote "PSP has only recently been overtaken by DS in terms of hardware sales" is refering to the US.

July US NPD sales (does not include Wal-mart)
NDS 377k
PSP 161k

Life to date US NPD sales:
DS: 5.6 million
PSP: 4.9 million

Life to date Japan numbers:
DS 10,306,159
PSP: 3,840,320

Last week Japan hardware:
DSL - 196,719
PSP - 41,289

Last week Top 20 software sales in Japan:
14 DS Titles
4 PS2 Titles
1 PSP Title
1 GBA Title