Is the Playstation Portable doomed?

[shams]

Firstly - no matter how well the PSP does (from here), Sony will consider it a success - and many industry figures will consider it a failure. So it depends how you look at it.

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A have a few thoughts on the situation:

 - the PSP will always have a market as a "non-gaming" device. It does have a lovely screen - its best asset - and this alone, should keep sales going for a long time. Consider that it also plays music, videos, great for homebrew, lots of quality games... and it should have legs.

 - I always thought that a PSP that uses CARTRIDGES would be an incredibly awesome device. The memstick is a little like this - but games are not being "released" on it (maybe this is why it is so good for warez). But Sony is too heavily involved in disc medium to do this (and too proud). If they would have released the PSP with cart only, it may well have won this generation (or got a lot closer). {battery, loading times, more compact games, etc}

 - The design & price of the PSP make it hard to iterate the device. Its expensive, so people are less likely buy an upgraded version. And apart from a touch screen (that may be problematic design-wise) Im not sure what they could put into a PSP2. Apart from tinkering, Sony can't really release an improved model for another 3-4 years.

 - I work at a company that makes premium mobile titles (phones). My boss made a strategic decision a year ago not too support the PSP - purely because its going to get HAMMERED by mobile devices (i.e. N95, etc..). There are already a heap of mobile devices out there that do exactly the same things that the PSP does - PLUS a heap more will be coming out shortly. A lot of them are more expensive, but like everything, price will drop over time (etc). Within a couple of years, there will be little point to owning a PSP rather than a decent phone. The last real advantage the PSP over mobile is quality game titles. This will help the PSP for a while, but once the new "N-gage" (series of Nokia devices) is out for a while - the PSP will be overwhelmed (game-wise).

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To conclude - the PSP still has good life in it yet. Sony may need to keep dropping the price, but that should drive sales for a couple of years to come. The biggest  threat is actually coming from the mobile (phone) industry - and Nokia. Once the new N-gage platform hits, it won't take long before some awesome games arrive. And within a year (two at most) after this arrival, the PSP will start to be swamped. Once this happens - its game over for the PSP. No company will prefer to develop for the PSP, rather than N-gage/mobiles  (lower dev cost, significantly higher install base, no limit to lifespan, huge amounts of growth to come).