Kresnik on 19 August 2012
| MattyPeq said: PSP is not a very good example of "successful" console... It sold a lot, but... we all know what the rival did. |
I have never really understood this argument. In the history of videogames, at least as far back as I can remember (fourth generation-ish) there's never been a situation like DS/PSP before until this generation. Just some examples:
- 4th Gen - SNES/Mega Drive both sell about 50 million, close race. Nintendo Gameboy sells 8x more than closest rival, Sega Game Gear.
- 5th Gen - Playstation sells 100 million, 3x more than closest rival N64. Nintendo Gameboy Colour again rapes the competition.
- 6th Gen - PS2 sells 150m (100m at the end of gen) 7x more (5x during gen) than closest rival Xbox. Nintendo GBA destroys all competition again.
And then we have the 7th Gen - Wii closes in on 100 million while rivals PS3 & Xbox 360 are on ~ 65 million a piece. An easy win, but only 1.5x the sales of the other two systems and far less than both of them combined.
In terms of handhelds, DS achieved PS2-esque numbers of ~ 150 million while PSP achieved half that amount, somewhere in the 75 million region. Judging by everything that's gone on before, I'd say the PSP was a fairly decent achievement, and not anything that Sony is going to consider unsuccessful. No handheld has ever gotten close to Nintendo in that market and the PSP - although still at only half the sales - is the best there's ever been. And in eras where one console has dominated (PS1 era, PS2 era, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance etc.), all the other consoles combined don't even reach half the numbers of the dominant console, yet PSP achieved those figures on its own.
So yeah, just my $2. I think the PSP was a success especially in the face of what the DS did. In fact, that's the whole reason we have a Vita at this point.
