Sony’s upcoming “favourites” line for the PSP is meant to achieve two goals: attract a younger audience aged 12 – 14 to the system, and help offset the rampant piracy that has so severely stunted the growth of the PSP’s software sales. This is what SCEA hardware marketing director John Koller revealed to Gamasutra in a follow-up to their interview with VP of publisher relations, Rob Dyer, on “fixing retail”.
Two weeks ago, we reported about a line up of $9.99 games. Now we have a bigger list of titles including: SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo, Ape Escape: On the Loose, Buzz! Master Quiz, Hot Shots Golf Open Tee, The Sims 2, LocoRoco 2, Patapon 2, Silent Hill: Origins, Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow, Justice League Heroes, Manhunt 2 and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, among others.
“By no means is this a small thing — we think $9.99 is a more natural impediment to piracy, because we have seen very publicly the attrition of some software sales at the higher price point,” he said. “We have a double-digit amount of titles coming very, very shortly, and that’s expected to grow pretty substantially.”