PSP to Give Way to Slimmer, Lighter Version, Sony Says

SCEA’s decision to announce PS3 news on the eve of E3 (CED July 10 p3) gave PSP center stage at the show. Still, SCEA CEO Jack Tretton told reporters PS3 sales doubled at the company’s top five North American retailers since the price cut Monday. This year, the company expects to ship 11 million PS3s globally, said Tretton at his first E3 as head of SCE’s U.S. division, a job he got when Hirai was promoted.

The new “Core Pack” PSP will be “piano black,” as the current version is, but two more colors will debut. The first will be an “ice silver” model, part of a new, limited edition Daxter PSP Entertainment Pack including Sony game Daxter, a one-GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and Fox’s Family Guy -- The Freakin’ Sweet Collection, a compilation of episodes from the animated TV show on Universal Media Discs (UMD). The ice silver PSP will ship Sept. 10 at $199.99. Oct. 9,. Sony will ship a “ceramic white” PSP silk-screened with an image of Darth Vader on the back as part of a limited edition Star Wars Battlefront PSP Entertainment Pack, also $199.99 and including new LucasArts game Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, a PSP exclusive. The Core Pack, at $169.99, includes only an AC adaptor and battery pack.

The new PSP version still supports UMD, in line with a recent SCEA vow to keep supporting the format despite rumors to the contrary. The new PSP will have no flash storage space, lending credence to rumors that that was Sony’s plan for a new PSP model.

The new PSP is 33 percent lighter and 19 percent slimmer, Hirai told reporters, adding that its battery is “more efficient.” It takes less time to load games, he said giving no specifics. Also new on the PSP is a video out port letting users display video, games and photos on TVs. The PSP’s 4.3” LCD is the same as on the current model.

More than 140 games will be released for PSP this fiscal year, including 20-plus third-party titles tagged exclusives, Sony said. First-party studios will be responsible for eight exclusive games, including key titles playable at E3 this year: God of War: Chains of Olympus, Jeanne D'Arc, NBA ‘08, Parappa the Rapper, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice, SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Tactical Strike and Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow.

SCEA’s 2007 goal is to “continue to build on the strong momentum” in sales following the $30 price cut on PSP in April (CED April 4 p7) and the launch of a “Dude Get Your Own” ad campaign, Tretton said. PSP inventories have been able to sustain a 90 percent rise in sales since the price drop, he said. Sony plans to ship about nine million PSPs worldwide this year, he added. As of March, the company shipped 25 million PSPs worldwide, plus 100 million software titles, it said. PS3 has been far outrun in sales by Wii and Xbox 360. But Tretton said the console has been a strong contributor to the Blu-ray format’s ability to perform better than HD DVD.

The news conference time devoted to PS3 mostly went to trailers touting coming new games and a demonstration of new features in Sony’s PlayStation “Home” 3D community service, unveiled at the March Game Developers Conference (CED March 8 p4) and on track for a fall rollout, SCE Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison said. A key new feature is that PS3 users now will be able to launch Blu-ray or PlayStation Network games within Home’s virtual world, he said. A newly designed, exterior Home Square replaces the PlayStation Home lobby concept first shown at GDC.

The new open-air space gives internal developers “more flexibility to build upon the community experience,” Sony said. Harrison also said users will be able to get their own personal spaces for Home. Four new apartments, including a beach house, Norwegian cabin, Manhattan penthouse and traditional Japanese house, were introduced, allowing more user choice and personalization, the company said. Users will be able to access Home via mobile phones and display digital photos taken with phones and presumably standalone digital cameras in the real world within Home’s virtual world, Harrison demonstrated. All three Sony executives spoke via avatar versions of themselves inside the Home virtual world at a few points in the news conference. The PlayStation Network has about two million registered users, 950,000 in North America, Tretton said, adding there have been 20 million downloads from it worldwide to date.

Sony introduced downloadable games designed specifically for PlayStation Network, including puzzle game echochrome, which makes full use of PS3’s Sixaxis wireless controller, the action game Pain and the latest entry in Sony’s WipeOut racing series, WipeOut HD. Also demonstrated were two games to be available via download from the PlayStation Store and on Blu-ray discs: SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Confrontation and Warhawk, an online multi-player air and land combat game. The titles are among more than 40 games and game packs being developed at SCEA for download via PlayStation Network this fiscal year in North America, it said.

Other standout game trailers shown during Sony’s session included Metal Gear Solid 4 from Konami and Sony’s Killzone 2. The latest entry in the hit Metal Gear Solid series will be a PS3 exclusive after all, Konami said, despite talk to the contrary arising from comments by Konami Digital Entertainment CEO Kazumi Kitaue, who told Reuters early this week he doesn’t “expect a substantial impact” from Sony’s PS3 price cut, saying consumers can buy a PC for $500 (CED July 11 p4). The game, expected to ship in early 2008, will be the final one in the series, Konami said.

More than 30 third-party titles shipped for PS3 since its late November launch and Sony expects more than 100 new third-party titles will be released for PS3 during this fiscal year, ending in March, it said.

Sony said Unreal Engine designer Epic Games joined with it to “fully optimize” the Unreal Engine for PS3 development in a move aiding developers using the engine to “accelerate game creation and maximize performance,” SCEA said. Already underway, the optimization affects seven developers using the Unreal Engine to create 20 games in the works, with “many more to come,” SCEA said. Midway and Epic Games will capitalize on the pact for game Unreal Tournament 3, an exclusive on PS3 when it ships this fall.

South Korean online game maker NCsoft signed an exclusive deal with SCE calling for NCsoft to create online games for the PlayStation platforms, it said. These include PS3 and PSP, with “accessible through” the PlayStation Network. Terms weren’t disclosed, nor were details on names or types of game in development. But NCsoft said the games will be created from both existing intellectual properties (IP) it owns it, as well as new IP. NCSoft’s biggest hit online game franchise is Lineage. It has not made non-PC games. But NCsoft North America President Robert Garriott told Consumer Electronics Daily early this year his company was eyeing a foray into the console arena, but ruled out portable systems (CED Feb 13 p5).

As for PS2, Tretton said the console has a world installed base of 118 million, taking in $26 billion-plus in the U.S. alone. The company expects to ship 10 million units of the still-thriving console this year; 160 new games are in development for North America, he added. -- Jeff Berman

E3 Summit Notebook…

Nintendo is happy, but “not close to being satisfied,” with strong demand for DS and Wii and the market share points it has scored as a result, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime told an E3 news conference. The game industry is warring with other entertainment forms and with MySpace and YouTube for consumers’ leisure time, he said. Only bits of time each day are open for leisure entertainment, but “minute by minute we intend to steal more of that time” for videogaming, he said.