Skype on Sony PSP carries little significance for now
As part of eBay strategy to make money from Skype, the VoIP provider’s softphone has found place on Sony PSP. Although it is widely believed the Sony is getting no revenue out of this, it is more likely to be the opposite. Skype icon on PSP is not going to drive PSP sales. That is almost for sure. Those who play games are not after cheap calls, or do not want to talk when they play. There is some use of voice avatars among the gamers but I am not aware of Skype offering such capability just yet.
Sony has since long been apprehensive about its business of consumer electronics items like cameras which are conveniently becoming part of mobile phones now. Since the likes of Nokia have been invading its territories, it is only fair that Sony has a go at telephonizing its gadgets. They will certainly have kids on their side. And who knows when those kids grow up with PSP as their companion, they might decide to stick to it rather than buy the mobile phone.
But this trend of putting everything on everything seems to be getting out of hand. I would rather have a couple of gadgets optimized for certain set of applications than have a monster all-in-one handheld.
Anyway, back to the B2B business analysis of the deal. I think the winner here is Skype which – it seems plausible - must be paying Sony for this deal. But it seems that Skype is available through firmware upgrade only. That means we are unlikely to see millions of Skype downloads on PSPs. So the money Skype is paying is likely to be small. It will be a function of the number of downloads and maybe some revenue sharing of SkypOut calls.
For gamers PSP is certainly one of the places where you could pick up a call if you have simultaneous ring available, a feature that rings your PC as well as phone and now the PSP.
For Sony, apart from helping it turn PSP into a telephony device, the deal enhances the web services aspect of PSP. Its new rival Nokia is neck deep into its OVI plans.
