handhelds sales in the US since 2000

[KBG29]

DerNebel said:

Again, that is complete BS. You are taking what you want and are applying it to the whole market with nothing to back it up.

You're speaking of growing their devices when in actuality they would just try to enter an already extremely crowded market, with no discernable advantage that people actually care about, todays smartphones/tablets are easily able to handle current day handheld gaming and it is also quite easily possible to connect a controller to a smartphone/tablet so even input isn't a problem should you want that. But here's the funny thing: Most people don't. You say that most people that bought a DS or PSP would go with a Nintendo/Playstation-phone if it was available (which btw entirely ignores that Sony already had a failed experiment with a PS phone), but that notion is easily disproven by what is going on in the current, especially western, market.

People are not looking for "high quality gaming experiences on the go", they are looking for quick and easy games that they can pick up, enjoy for a couple minutes on the train and then be done with it. Let me give you a personal example, when I was still living with my father his girlfriend and her kids they had 7 DS's in that house and 2 PSPs. You know what all those handhelds were replaced with? Smartphones and tablets. And nobody is complaining about the lack of high quality games on those devices cause all they want are some quick and easy games they can play when they have a couple minutes to kill, when they are looking for quality gaming they are going for consoles or PCs.

Lets be real here: You want a PS phone, nothing less, nothing more.

First thing, Sony has never experimented with a PlayStation Phone. The Xperia Play was basterd device forced by Ericsson. The Xperia Play never had access to PlayStation Network, and only got support from PlayStation Mobile which PlayStation never backed, marketed, or cared about, and is being shut down completely on September 10th. PlayStation's closest attempt at a phone was the 3G Vita with Skype, but that was never pushed, and 99% of Vita owners still don't know they can make calls to anyone via the device, and 99.9% of non Vita owners don't even know a handheld that could make phone calls has ever exsited.

Second thing, Sony is already in the mobile business. They have Xperia devices running on a competitors OS, and they have absolutly no way to stand out, or ever doing anything to gain traction. By moving to their own mobile OS, and utilizing everything they have already built on PlayStation Network, they would gain multiple advantages. This is the only move they can make if they ever want to make it in the mobile industry. They have to leverage their biggest brand, unify the company image, and shake up the market with something new and more functional.

Third thing, Yes I want a PlayStation Phone, and I already have one in my 3G Vita. However, that is not the point. I don't care if it is PlayStation, Microsoft, Nintendo, or even Steam. I JUST WANT A MOBILE PLATFORM OF ANY KIND THAT IS GAMES FIRST, and I meet new people everyday that feel the same way.  All of the other stuff will come if the platform is done right. The first 200M users will come for games, the next 200M will come because, the platform will get all of the stuff available on Android and iOS, due to the size of the Userbase, and the higher dollar per user ratio the platform would offer.