[Dube]

I recently wrote a post on the PSPgo, Sony’s newest offering in the mobile gaming market. One of the things we talked about was the revamp of the PSN (Playstation Network) in readiness for the release of the PSPgo. What we didn’t talk about was the new pricing structure.

Sony’s newPSPgo was built without a UMD (Universal Media Disk, which was anything but universal), and given a 16 GB onboard flash drive and Wi-Fi. This is the perfect setup to send users to the new PSN to buy games, movies and music. Is any of this starting to sound familiar?

The PSPgo may have more in common with the iPhone than a web enabled store at the fingertips. Prices for games sold on the new platform will be much lower than the previous UMD- based games, and even lower than Apple’s App Store’s high end of $9.99/ game.

This hints that Sony may be relaxing its business model, thereby allowing small developers to build games for the PSP.

There has also been news on the recruitment front, as it is rumored that Sony is working with iPhone developers to port existing gaming titles to sell on PSN.

The major difference comes in the approach to publishing new games to PSN. It’s not going to be near as easy or hit and miss as iPhone’s approach. Sony plans to actively control the release and Technical Requirement Checks of all new software, but with the uproar over the App Store problems, this could be good for business.

If Sony doesn’t make a good run at Apple’s mobile gaming market, it won’t be for a lack of effort. It seems that Sony has been watching and learning, emulating the good and avoiding the bad. We shall see if it does them justice.