PSP World

Teens Getting Their PSP

Yesterday we reported Sony's immediate plans to cut the price of PSP. Possibly seen as a welcome change by many of its fans, one analyst in the report, Mitchell of Kaufman Bros, speculated that "the PSP price cut may actually be an effort by Sony to clear out inventory before launching a new version of the device later this year." This may be so, but we feel the more immediate question should be, what does this mean for the younger market, who up until now may have been disuaded from the PSP's strong price?

Traditionally, Sony has targetted the hard-core gamer rather than families and younger gamers targetted by Nintendo. Thus, a PSP price cut could only be seen as part of a much broader long term marketing strategy by Sony and not just a short term tactic in order to clear out inventory. In support of this, PSP senior product manager John Koller confirmed this yesterday whilst talking to Wired's Game Life Blog.

"There were a few reasons," says Koller, for dropping the PSP's price now. First, Sony "received some savings on the cost of goods, which we wanted to get to the consumer." Second, "Wal-Mart sold 110,000 units in five days on Black Friday [last year] when they dropped the price to $169." Finally, the aforementioned shift to the 13-17 year old market.

This desire to capture the teen market is not a new move by Sony. After the failed 'All I Want For Christmas Is A PSP' campaign last year Sony intend to launch a new approach called 'Dude, Get Your Own'. As Koller remarks, the previous "...campaign clearly did not work," he said, but it was an attempt to "identify ways of speaking and marketing to that 13-17 year-old consumer. It was an effort to be able to target that individual in a more quiet manner and not go out and promote it and have it be something that was found. The way it was done is not correct... In the future, we'll be more clear and transparent to the consumer."

The PSP price price cut is thus the first in many initiatives Sony will make to attract the teen market. Koller, also cited the introduction of PSP HotSpots as an intention to coax PSP gamers out of the house more often. In addition, there will be regular new firmware updates with new functionality designed to appeal to the 13-17 demographic. Finally, he hinted that future UMD movie releases will have titles more geared to the teen audience. So expect more of likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja and Too Fast Too Furious then.