I've heard a lot of hate directed towards the Vita as of late. Hell, I'm guilty of it too. So in an effort to see what Sony may have done wrong this time, I went back to see what they did right with the PSP.

My findings only confused me further.

Frankly, the PSP's sucess confuses me. Sure, it sold a healthy base of 75 million or so units over its lifetime, but the software total is shockingly low; the average PSP owner only bought 3 or 4 games. And these numbers were even lower in places like Europe, where it supposedly did the best.

Furthermore, the PSP doesn't seem to have had a true global killer app. Oh sure, Monster Hunter was a big deal in Japan, but that's it. Where the DS had half a dozen games with 10% penetration, the PSP has zero. Maybe one if you include Liberty City Stories, but then you have to give Pokemon Black/White to the DS.

As for 1st party support, don't make me laugh! Sony was alright negligent in their treatment of the platform. There was never an Uncharted game for the PSP. Gran Turismo didn't come out until 2009. And the treatment of the platform 2010 onwards resembles Nintendo's treatment of the Wii from 2011 to 2012!

I didn't come here to trash the PSP. I simply do not understand how it reached the level of sucess it did. Was it because of its multimedia capabilities? Did a wide number of moderate hits give it a cult following? Did 20 million people get it simply to play emulated SNES games?

tl;dr Why was the PSP a hit?

Brand name.

Brand is now dying thats why Vita failed.

All of those + general pirating (?), Monster Hunter, Playstation name... easy porn on the go? (Not much alternative back in 04/05-ish)

PSP was sexy and had awesome games. Plus cfw made it the best portable system ever.

Easy to hack.

Was a portable media machine long before iPhone.

Launched during the PS2's dominant years.

Masses of third party support, particularly in Japan.

Pick any of the above.

I only ever saw people using it as a media device, like people use phones now.

It came of at a time it would be relevant, smart phone couldn't play games and tablets were years away.

I also thing being hacked helped in hardware sales

PSP is still better than 3DS and PSV combined. It's the best option for anyone who never owned a portable gaming console.

I think it had a lot to do with multimedia capabilities, and the fact that it was something of a status symbol.

Multiple reasons ...

1) Sony's strong position with the Playstation and PS2 along with Nintendo's weakening position with the N64 and Gamecube caused everyone to assume that Sony could easily take away Nintendo's handheld market.

2) Although the PSP lacked the kinds of games that people wanted from a portable gaming machine, the PSP was hacked early on and NES and SNES emulators allowed gamers to get these kinds of games. It was ironic at that point in time that the PSP was being purchased primarily to play Nintendo games.

3) Strong third party support, most western publishers and many Japanese publishers bet heavily on the PSP leading to many very strong franchises being available for the PSP and not for the DS.

There are more reasons but these three stick out in my mind and I would argue points (1) and (3) have been completely reversed to favour the 3DS over the PS-Vita.