PSP was overrun by ports admits Sony

Sony’s PSP handheld was overrun by console ports affecting its sales in the West, the console giant’s marketing VP has admitted.

Speaking to Gamasutra, John Koller said that despite its success it became difficult to define the console’s unique capabilities due to a lack of original IP.

He said many developers had simply "thrown over" a lot of content to the handheld from the PS2, rather than taking advantage of the PSP’s own functionalities, and hoped this was a mistake Sony would not repeat with Vita.

"The issue that happened with PSP is we got overrun with ports," said Koller.

“It became very difficult for us to define what made PSP unique. The content development became a bit unstructured or decentralized, in that we got a lot of content that was on PlayStation 2 and got thrown over to the handheld."

Koller added that the Vita should not be something that consumers play just because they’ve left the living room, but a platform that offers new experiences.

He went on to say that although Sony’s latest handheld was being advertised as a console quality portable, much like the PSP, there were many unique titles coming from Ubisoft and Activision to play off its particular functionalities.

"The messaging is similar [to the PSP], but I think the output is going to be quite different."