The long and winding saga of high PSP Minis prices continues. When we last left off, the ESRB was identified as the reason PSP Mini downloads costing twice as much as their iPhone counterparts, with accusations that ratings cost too much. The ESRB has now hit back, claiming that cheap games do not have to spend so much cash to get their game approved.
"The ESRB has a reduced fee of $800 for games that have development costs under $250,000," explains ESRB spokesman Eliot Mizrachi, "which would likely apply to virtually all PSP Minis."
The PSP Mini buck passing has gotten somewhat ludicrous. First Sony blamed developers, then developers blamed the ESRB, now the ESRB is saying it's not their fault. So, who is to blame for that $9.99 Tetris? We'll probably never know the full reason. All we know is that PSP Minis cost stupid amounts of money and is yet another half-hearted portable download service that's doomed to tread water.
At least the trash on DSiWare is cheap.
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Contest:
8:00 AM on 10.13.2009
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All signs point to people not wanting to claim involvement in the PSPgo.
Which, of course, is highly understandable.
It's also odd that a game like Tetris is $9.99 in the states, but £3.99 in the UK: normally a UK game will be priced at around the £6-7 for a $10. So WTF is going on, and if Tetris can be fairly priced in the UK, why can't others?
They pay because the ESRB is the industry's form of self-policing. I'd hate to see what the government would do if they stepped up and took the ESRB's place.
This kind of thing is already sinking the PSP Mini ship. Like someone said, I notice Sony never talk about the cost of a dev kit for PSP Go, no real secret why. Too damn pricey, like anything else Sony.
Indeed, why would any indie developer, make a PSP Mini game over an iPhone, DSi or XNA one? Another nail for the Go's coffin.
Take a look at the large developer games on the App Store and then compare the prices on the Minis. There is some difference, but it's not by much. I don't see many big-name developers releasing games on the App Store for less than $5.
The other big consideration (and I need to verify this) is that Sony charges for bandwidth and Apple doesn't.
That just goes to show it isn't just the expense of the dev kit or ESRB ratings that attribute to the price. The DSi dev kit is actually more than the PSP and they still have to pay the ESRB. I see two possible reasons. Sony is taking too big of a cut, and/or the devs are uncertain about the market for PSP Minis and want to make sure they recoup their expenses.
Ratings should be self policed. not passed on to some made up department like the fcc.
Secondly, I'd seriously question any business plan that views an $800 certification fee as being insurmountable. Unless you're an indy developer who's pirating all of the software you're using, that fee could be one of your smaller project costs.
...it's really Sony, folks.
Development just costs more.
The only REAL question here is why SPECIFICALLY EA's Tetris costs what it does when most of the other mini's are $5 to $7.
Hey, the pinball game on DSiWare this week looks cool. So you can lay off the "trash on the DSiWare" comments for this week Jim.
Because his comment assumes without substance that the ESRB really does all of that.