is the Sony PSP 'directionless'? Ubisoft thinks so...

"I think that Sony is disappointed with sales and it's unsure as towhich way to take it," said Cooper in an interview published today.
"Sonyneeds to show us a bit more about what its plans are to convince thepublisher to invest lots more money into it. Especially when you've gotthe DS selling at such a tremendous pace.

"I suppose it'salmost too technical for the casual person, those that are buying theDS at the moment, who want a few buttons and not a lot more. It's sosimple what [Nintendo] has done. That's where I think Sony has gone alittle bit too complicated, they've over-specced it, the price is toohigh and they need to go back to the drawing board and start again," headded.
Cooper doesn't think it's an issue with software pricing,rather Sony hasn't communicated to publishers clearly what directionthe machine is going to take in the future.
"I don't think it'sa pricing issue," he admitted. "As a publisher I'll always say pricingis not the first point of call. I don't think dropping the price ofgames is going to sell more product or hardware.
"It's direction,a real strategic decision by Sony as to what it wants to do with thatproduct. It's a great shame that sales are at the level they are,because you've got a hardware system that is absolutely beautiful."
Ubisofthas no games planned for the PSP this year, but Cooper insists theformat still has potential, so long as Sony can properly identify itsaudience and move the system out of "no man's land".
"There are ongoing discussions with Sony about what its decisions and strategies are, how they are going to go forward.
"Certainly,we still see it as a viable format. But we're not developing too manygames on it until we get some direction. They've got to decide whatthey want to do with it, and come out clearly and say, 'this is ourstrategy, this is our process and this is how publishers can get behindit'."
"At the moment they are in no man's land, they're not surequite how to tackle the DS competition and who is the PSP consumer.They've got to sort that out first," he said.
The comments come a month after Sony's European president David Reeves admitted to GamesIndustry.biz that the system was suffering from a lack of games.
Althoughsupport for the handheld is slowing in Europe and the US, sales of thePSP in Japan continue to rocket. The continued introduction of newcolours in the Blume series has boosted sales, with the hardware regularly outselling the Wii in the market.
Thefull interview with Rob Cooper, where he shares his thoughts on thePSP, the problems with Wii consumers and why this Christmas salesperiod is going to be "vicious", can be read here.