What Was It That Killed The PSP?

[ClaudeLv250]

kowenicki said:
It wasnt anything sony did too wrong, it was just that Nintendo got it so right with the DS

Oh, there were plenty of things Sony did wrong. People who say otherwise must have a short term memory.

• Multimedia Handheld - I'm not saying that PSP being a multimedia device is inherently wrong, but the way Sony marketed it at the time certainly hurt. If the PSP was the only handheld on the market, that would have been fine. But they were putting it up against a pure gaming machine by a beast like Nintendo. People know what they want out of their DS. The PSP is a mishmash of ideas and so it's competing with other devicesthat, like the DS, were specialized in their area. UMDs were a failure. The iPod became a monster and took any attention away from PSP as a digital music player. And the DS had a bigger and better library of games. So in Sony's thirst to make a handheld that did it all, they doomed it to be second class to everything else out there.

 

• Piracy - Sony is surprisingly lax on the subject, especially compared to Nintendo. I've met people that actually brag about never having bought a single game for their PSP. And there's not a whole lot stopping them. The DS has piracy problems too, but Nintendo is a lot more active in trying to squash activities that will never truly end.

 

• The Games - Most of the PSP's prized games after it launched were clearly built off of home console fundamentals. Handhelds are handhelds for a reason. Insane load times and lite versions of PS2 classics as your draws is a flawed approach because you're relying on part of an audience thinking "I have to have more of this but on the go" which is what I'm sure most people playing God of War weren't thinking. The PSP actually had better 3rd party support than the DS did coming out of the gates but the DS had more compelling software for what it was because of the way the games are designed. Brain Training is purposely using the DS's strengths to bring a new audience to the platform. God of War: Chains of Olympus is basically GoW: The Spinoff; you're going to get some of the God of War fanbase and not much else. Even with established franchises like Mario and Zelda, Nintendo thought about the platform and the people that might be buying these games and how to make it revolve around being a DS product. Mario didn't follow the route of Sunshine and (eventually) Galaxy...Nintendo instead chose to raise 2D Mario back from the dead, which turned out to be one of the most lucrative decisions in gaming in the decade. Similarly, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is built completely around the DS hardware and has, to date, sold more than Wind Waker and Twilight Princess in Japan.

 

• Neglect & 'Relaunch' - After the DS's dominance was established, Sony let the PSP die. They didn't support it, and they certainly weren't courting 3rd parties to do it in their absence. Then, in Japan, Capcom single-handedly revived it with Monster Hunter. After awhile, Sony decided to try to 'relaunch' the PSP in Western territories in 2009. As shown above, they still don't get it when it comes to the games. They graduated from PS2-lite titles to...PS3-lite titles. The PSP was 'relaunched' with much anticipated titles such as third person Resistance (bomb), Rock Band Unplugged (bundle baby/huge bomb), Motorstorm: the spinoff (spectacular flop) EvenLittlerBigPlanet (modest seller at best) as well as Assassin's Creed Lite (bomb).

I can elaborate if need be.