Sony: stop acting stupid.
Mind the picture. You’ve seen it around, it’s a Sony Playstation Portable, probably the most modded handheld device ever. The PSP, with its amazing capatibilities and great hardware makes for an awesome geeky portable media player, gaming console and PDA. Something that’s bound to sell out if people can code for it, add new features and hack on it. Sony, though, doesn’t realize the potential market they have at hands (literally).
I can imagine their board of directors meeting the PSP product managers: Someone says: “People are using our console to do cool stuff besides gaming!”. Prompt reply: “*GASP* What you say? Someone set us up the bomb! Stop them now!”.
A little history and advice:
Ever since the console got out, people started hacking it to allow for just about anything. To a point where the console now runs games from lots of other gaming devices, runs linux and windows, surfs the web, allows for games to be played from the Memory Stick (saving loads of battery time), etc. In fact, possibilities seem endless with the device. But Sony is trying to stop the fun by releasing firmware version after firmware version, crippling the console and trying to stop the hacking masses from doing anything fun with their console. A tip – Sony, stop acting stupid.
If people are hacking a device, they’re finding more value in it. They’ll be talking about it to their friends, and since the console isn’t something you can actually “download from the web”, it means sales go up. I mean, come on, the console isn’t available here in Portugal yet, but I was planning on buying one this September just so I can have some fun. If all I can do is play games released by sony and watch mediocre movies, I won’t. And I imagine many others won’t either.
Sony really needs to see things from the other end of the spectrum or they’ll be risking their gaming reputation. How can they not see the value in allowing people to fully take advantage of the console’s potential? People are acknowledging the console is fantastic and they’re using it far better than Sony had expected – if it was my product, I’d be delighted. Sony, apparently, isn’t.
The new 2.0 firmware update, crippleware.
In a blog comment at this Make:Blog post, a commenter sums it (ironically) best:
Why in the world would I want a web browser, an SNES, an NES, a Lynx, a Gameboy Color, a Gameboy Advance, a Neo Geo CD, a Turbo Grafx 16, a Genesis, a Master System, a Game Gear, a Neo Geo Pocket, and Amiga, a Chip8 system, an MSX, MAME, a Wonderswan, a VMU, Nethack, Angband, ToME, an eBook reader, a calculator, a scheduler, a calendar, Scumm games, a Sudoku game, a portable VNC client, an X86 emulator, irda transfer programs, remote controls, vCard reader, FTP server, avi player, advanced music player, drum kits, file browsers, an easy to learn coding environment, graphic changing program, a fullscreen movie player, a scrabble assistant, a notepad, a dictionary, and all that other garbage. I’m totally upgrading.
If instead of crippling the console Sony announced how successful their console is due to the thousands of people using it beyond expectations they’d be doing a much better job at marketing their product. Some companies should really see things with 2.0 goggles – you know, the 2.0 that doesn’t cripple products.
