Slitherine: PSP is still "huge opportunity"

Slitherine Software marketing manager Marco Minoli has told GamesIndustry.biz that he believes the PlayStation Portable is a "huge opportunity" for the company, particularly while major publishers seem to be overlooking it.

Minoli, talking in an interview at Game Connection late last year, explained that for the company's Great Battles of Rome game, in association with The History Channel, the PSP was the highest-selling platform, despite a longstanding PC-based collection of fans.

"To be honest, the PC version of the History Channel game was the least-performing one, because we already had our core audience from previous games, and if I look now at the success of the game itself, the PSP version gave us the best results," he said. "That's why we really keep pushing the PSP now, it's perfect for us, for our strategy of history and strategy.

"To be very honest nobody's looking at the PSP as a huge opportunity at the moment, and I really think there is a huge opportunity there. I've seen sales charts for some territories now and a top ten PSP game sells more than a top ten Nintendo DS game," he added.

And Minoli also believes that while trying to convince retailers to stock edutainment titles is an impossible task - particularly without a big license to back it up - the games industry must look to add learning elements to games in order to raise its profile.

"I don't think we can make money out of the word "edutainment," but we can make money out of the thing that we're doing," he said.

"On the other side I think that we need to raise the profile of the industry - we are an entertainment industry, there's no doubt about it - but raise its profile towards educators and politicians... we need it."

The full interview with Marco Minoli is available now.