Screen Digest: 112 million Nintendo DS Units and 67 million PSPs to be sold

[Deguello]

Yeah PSP at 67 million just isn't happening.

The reason people say PS is a failure is created solely out of Sony's (and their fans') own dialogues about their competition for the past 10 years. Being #1 is all that matters. 2nd place is the first loser. Next Gen doesn't start until we say it does. This was also the press' idea too.

Now when the PSP comes out and does mediocrely well against the the gimmicky stupid DS that all the press was dogging down on and suddenly it's alright for the two to "coexist." Bullshit. These are your rules. You can't change them now that you are losing. Nobody did this for GC when in 2003 it was called an "unmitigated disaster" by mainstream magazines and such. Nobody did this for N64 or Saturn. Why should Sony dodge the judgment of their own world?

The PSP might just be the most worthless platform of all time. It sells alot yes, and there are good games on it, true. Like there are good games on every platform, even the Jaguar and 3D0, and the PSP does have more volume of them. But the problem stems from the fact that the highest-rated and highest selling games on the PSP are ports. I mean, yes I know you've heard this description before, but it is not fanboyism. The PSP is dogged down with ports to the point that the games that sell most on it are ports and the games that are most anticipated are ports. This leads to developers not feeling justified in creating original content, simply dipping into their libraries and seeing what they can squelch a few bucks out of.

The PSP is even profitable for some companies, but this comes at the cost of originality and quality, which results in good companies just wasting their time on the PSP with original games that no one buys or ports that stifle originality. But PSP game sales are dropping like rock, I mean check out the American weekly sales. You have to go to the next page to find the first PSP game which is, lo and behold, GTA: LCS a port. As the sale go lower and lower, the profitability will too, and soon it will become just Sony themselves supporting it, which is the worst position to be in ever, like Nintendo in the N64 days except with worse and lower-selling games.

The PSP is the most "successful" failure of all time, but a failure nonetheless. It's "taking a chunk of the handheld market" was not their intended goal, and comparing their legacy of domination to their lukewarm mediocrity in the handheld sector only leads to bitter disappointment from its backers and the third parties who threw their weight behind it to begin with. The PSP does not get a participation ribbon for merely competing. They must win to get success. This is their world, perhaps they should live in it for a while.