Essay: "What I Do Best Isn't Very Nice"

 "I'm the best at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice." Wolverine

 I like to play videogames but I don't own a TV, so I'm not able to use a Playstation, Xbox, or Wii. After some careful thought and research, I decided to invest in a Playstation Portable (or PSP) around the same time I was wrapping up law school. I figured I deserved a treat, and it was right after the first God of War game was released for the system.


I've never regretted my purchase. The PSP is a fantastic system. It has a wide variety of games, many of which are easy to get used for cheap, including both original intellectual properties (such as Patapon) and a number of exclusive installments from popular franchises (such as Metal Gear, LittleBig Planet, Tekken, and Final Fantasy). It plays well and it looks great. The screen, in particular, is bright and attractive and easily viewable from different angles and various lighting conditions.

Furthermore, everyone who's seen my PSP has loved it. When I stayed at my good friend Matt Bernardo's cottage studying for the bar ads, both he and Dimi played it to death, and when I play it on the subway people stare over my shoulder.

And yet, although the PSP has not exactly been a bust, it hasn't really been a roaring success either. It has been outsold almost two-to-one by the Nintendo DS, its main competitor, and it has also been squeezed by the introduction of smartphone gaming, and lately, the iPad.

Ah yes, the iPad. I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's basically a big iPhone that isn't a phone. A 64 gig iPad will run you 700 bucks at Future Shop, the same store where you can also buy a netbook with a 250 gig hard drive for 229 bucks. In case you think the price of an iPad has something to do with Apple's costs, guess what?  You are utterly wrong. Apple has the largest profit margins of any technology company in the world. They charging more for a device that does less (although it is much easier and neater to use (except in a coffee shop; for a quick laugh hang out at Starbucks and watch douchebags try to manipulate their expensive coffees and tablets at the same time)).

The iPad was widely decried by the experts when it was released, for many of the reasons listed above, while the PSP, in general, was praised (although there were reservations about the launch price). But you don't need me to tell you what a wild success the iPad was. You are probably reading this on an iPad right now, feeling vaguely ashamed of yourself.

None of this is intended to make you feel bad about giving money to Apple or to slag the iPad. As a man who probably spends close a thousand dollars a year on comic books, and untold fortunes in overpriced downtown Toronto bars and restaurants, I am in no position to criticize what you do with your disposable income. If you own an iPad and it makes you happy, I'm happy. The question remains - why is it that the iPad was a success and the PSP was a (relative) failure?

There are two basic answers to this sort of question. The first is some variation of "people are stupid." That's why Transformers 2 made so much money, that's why Rob Ford is mayor of Toronto, that's why the Twilight books sell so well while sales of the masterpiece Deeper (written, according to its publisher, by Canada's answer to Steve King) languish in the low double-digits. People bought an iPad because they are stupid.

Only, people aren't stupid, just like they aren't smart, just like they aren't tall or short. People are people. It's not enough to say something succeeded because people are stupid, because they aren't, and so there must be another reason, even if that reason is only random chance.

Another, more subtle, variation of this argument is that people aren't informed. Sure, they aren't stupid, but they're in a hurry and they don't want to do a lot of research, and so they buy whatever they hear of without thinking about it. There's an element of truth in this, but it still doesn't hold water. Because people did know about the PSP, and they even like it, and just didn't  go out and buy it.

The other basic answer is some variation of "nothing succeeds like success." In other words, the iPad sells more than PSP because it's better than the PSP, period. All the so-called experts were wrong and Steve Jobs is a genius, etc. This is obviously unsatisfactory. It's begging the question - assuming the truth of what is to be proved (namely, that if something sells more than something it is the "better" product). It fails to explain the perfectly valid criticisms of the iPad (and why, if Steve Jobs is such a genius, he needed Bill Gates to bail out his company back in 1997).

So what is the real answer (other than that the PSP and iPad are not direct competitors)?

Well, I think the various fortunes of the PSP and the iPad show that what determines a device's success is not only whether it does something well, but whether that device does something that people want.

Let's backtrack a bit. I said before that the PSP has great games. That's true. But what kinds of games does it have? It has graphically intensive, complex, mature games - in other words, the sort of games that you would play on your home console. The PSP is built on the assumption that people want to play the same kind of games on the go that they do at home. But is that assumption true? Perhaps people would rather play those kinds of games at home (which, remember, I do not own) and when people are on the road, they want to play something casual. Something quick and easy, without a strong back story and complicated controls, that you can jump into and jump out of in a few minutes. Something like, in other words, the games you play on an iPad.

And as for the iPad's success, well, there isn't much doubt that it can't do much more than an iPhone, and that it can do much less than a traditional laptop. But what if people don't need or want that extra functionality? What if they already have a laptop or a desktop for those kinds of things? What if they want something big enough to see and use, but smaller than a laptop, more intuitive, quicker to turn on?

So the answer, ultimately, is that what drives a product's success is not just how well it does what it does, but also if people want to do that sort of thing all. For some reasons, reasons which are not invalidated by its success, the iPad is not that "great" at all. But it has succeeded despite all that not just because of the blind loyalty of Apple's followers, but because it was useful to people. Useful in the sense it did something for them that they wanted to get done.

The PSP on the other hand just wasn't useful to most people who owned a TV. As much as they admired it from afar and enjoyed it when they had it in their hands they just didn't need to buy one for themselves because in the long term it didn't do anything they really wanted to do.

Does that seem like a simple lesson?  Well, maybe. But Sony has recently shown off the PSP2 (known as the NGP) to strong reviews (other than some reservations about launch price). It has better graphics, an extra joystick, and a touchscreen. Once again it will feature portable versions of the games people love to play on their home consoles, including popular franchises ("Uncharted").

Looks great. I'll probably pick one up myself, once the price comes down a bit. But I won't be expecting too many of you to join me. And although I may not be able to resist dropping a superior comment at your expense if I see you struggling with your iPad7 when we're out for a coffee, I might as well let you know now, off the record, that I don't blame you one bit, and I'm a little worried that I might be the sucker, after all.