Sony still early on PSP curve, says Yoshida

When it comes to taking the best out of the PSP and delivering it to consumers so they can use it every day for many things, Sony is still early on the curve according to Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida.

"Like when we started with PlayStation One, with videogames as being a toy, and looking at the individual countries when it comes to introducing new aspects to the platform - in our minds we're doing the same sort of thing with the PSP since 2005," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

"It's too early to make judgments - we know there's a lot more that we can do, and with the massive growth of the industry we understand that third party publishers have so many choices, many more than they have resources. Sometimes we struggle to convince them to put more resources into the PSP."

Even so,Yoshida thinks that there are still a lot of good business opportunities on the PSP that will continue to be viable because there are no competing platforms.

"...We've always thought that the PSP as a platform is standing on its own - there's no direct competition, although some people think that the DS is its rival simply because it's portable, but the positioning and the main user base are totally different."

The PSP is outperforming Sony's short-term expectation - mainly due to its success in Japan, where it continues to be the highest-selling platform week after week.

Yoshida says they are really pleased that the system is the most exciting games platform in a major territory, and doesn't seem too concerned that it hasn't achieved the same measure of success in Europe or North America.

"So we continue to support the platform, and we've been doing really well with first party software, and I hope that more developers and publishers see some of the things that the PSP can uniquely offer to them, and its reach into consumers' lives," he said.

Part two of our interview with Shuhei Yoshida is now online.