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Forums - Sales Discussion - Is PSP dying outside of Japan?

Paul on 13 February 2010
loves2splooge said:
.jayderyu said:
Hisiru said:

loves2splooge has a point.

Third....

 

The PSP is doing fine. Gamers need to stop thinking that this machine has to be compared to the DS. Most MP3 players are not compared to the iPod. Success is based on if it makes the company money. Does the PSP do this. Yes. Then it's a success. It's not a runaway hit like the DS, but why does it have to be?

So who's fault is it that the PSP is being compared to the DS. Reviewers and Sony fanbois. They assumed the same kind of market sweep as the PS and PS2. Heck we are seeing the same kind of behaviour with the PS3. groaning, bitching, whining and finally shutting up. Instead how about stop wasting time with bitching about it's success, but not good enough. And instead enjoy the games and features it offers.

So yeah, love2splooges points are right, but that doesn't take away from peoples enjoyment for those who want it. It's a niche product for a niche market. At least it's there to provide for the niche market.

Plus I hear Birth By Sleep is coming in summer?

 

Edit: I got my PSP-3000 on Sunday :P. I finally get to play Crisis Core and beat up my friend at Dissidia... As soon as I pick them up anyways :P

Yep, you make a great point. IMO, Sony's strategy isn't going to win them a handheld war. But if the PSP really is profitable, then good on Sony and that's not a bad thing. The PSP offers a more home console-esque experience on the go gaming-wise as well as multimedia functions to boot. There is a market for that. It's just a lot smaller than the market for Nintendo handhelds.

Also if I were to mention one real advantage to the PSP over the DS in western culture, it's that it's more socially acceptable for a grown man to be playing a PSP in public rather than a DS. I love my DS and I have used it a lot indoors (not that much lately though since my Xbox 360 is hogging most of my gaming time these days. That is until Feb 16th.. Ace Attorney Investigations baby! lulz) but I never use it in public (unless no one is there to watch me. lol) because it takes balls for a grown man to whip out a DS in public in North America. Heck I've seen people online say that if you see a grown man with a DS in public, he's probably a pedophile (a perception that I find very offensive. You can be a grown man and still find DS games to be fun. The DS has a number of fun point-and-click adventures, has some fun stylus-oriented games like Elite Beat Agents, NSMB, Mario Kart, jrpgs, srpgs, etc. I hate it when it gets branded with the kiddie label. People in the west are so out of touch with their inner-child and reject their inner-child so much that it is sad.)

I have considered buying a PSP before just so that I could get in some handheld gaming during my commute in a way that would make me seem like less of a total dork (the PSP's handheld jrpgs/srpgs would be perfect for commutes. And I've heard that you can continue where you left off after you power off your PSP. Instead of having to rely on quick saves or putting your system in sleep mode) But ultimately I've decided against that because the PSP is the system that I'm least interested in. I'd rather invest in a Wii since I want to play the Wii games a lot more. Whereas with PSP, my perception is that it has great games but I can't pump up myself to get excited about the jrpgs/srpgs on it when the DS has a gazillion of them.

I play my DS on the bus all the time and I'm 35. One day there were 3 grown men playing the DS on my bus and one women. With games like Professor Layton and Brain training, I don't get why there would be a stigma about playing the DS. It probably mostly comes form 16 to 21 year old males who played a lot of Pokemon as children.



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Malachi on 13 February 2010
Darc Requiem said:
PSP software sales have always been horrid outside of Japan. The hardware always sold pretty well until recently. Sony needs to cut the price on the PSP or it's finished.

That not true at all, look at the americain chart and you'll notice that the attach rate is much better than in Japan(that true for all console too), it has about 50 million more games sold there than in Japan with a 5 million bigger userbase. what killed the PSP wasn't piracy like so many wish to believe (like so many wish to believe that DD sale on it is anywhere good) but the lack of third party support from western developer and Sony itself(though it can be excused to have focused on the PS3 when it was in trouble).

It had good support from japenese developer at the beginning and had at least GTA when it come to western franchise. The problem was that almost all the japenese support were niche game in the west except for SE one and that no western one jumped in the bandwagon after the GTA success. The big western developer(EA,Activison,THQ,Take2) don't seem to be interested in handheld at all, they only make game that are attached to a console game(that include the 5m GTA games), except for Ubisoft which milked a few handheld franchise on the DS for a while until people caugth on and stopped buying them.

Then Nintendo started to release their massive seller and the japanese developer who wanted to sell game in the west started to jump ship(SE being the main one) which left Sony with only the like of KOEI as company that supported the PSP more than the DS. Then SONY caugth a break and one of the PSP game became a runaway hit and a system seller, only in Japan however which didn't help in the west. Then the next installement moved to console, not even their, when Capcom wanted to make it big oversea which probably killed any hope for it's ressurection in the west. SONY tried last years with a good deal of marketing even some viral one, finaly a big first party game (GT) and a remodel which actually changed something. It failed though and I really wonder what SONY next move is going to be now.



Persons without argument hide behind their opinion

loves2splooge on 13 February 2010
dunno001 said:
loves2splooge said:

A $140 PSP-3000 is nice but sadly you can't hack the motherboard for those yet.

And herein lies the problem. That's why the 2000s continue to sell- piracy, even if it's not of PSP games. This is where Sony's problem is- it's been notoriously easy to hack the system. Yes, there is piracy on the DS, but it's not what's talked about. Talk to the system owners, even of the Wii and 360, and who talks most about piracy on their system? PSP owners. The reputation the PSP has now for this is not something Sony's going to be able to shake, and explains most of their other later PSP revisions- trying to plug those holes. I of course wish them luck, since my 3000 is still kicking, but...

Yep, Sony can try all of these new revisions but anyone who is really motivated to play pirated PSP Isos, emulate nes/snes/genesis/psx/etc. games, watch illicitly obtained video, etc. is going to get a PSP-2000. PS2 piracy is stupidly easy and even more risk-free than PSP or DS piracy if you use particular methods but with the PS2 being market leader, it had a lot of gamers who weren't in the know about piracy and they pretty much carried the PS2 software-wise while the pirates pirated it mercilessly. But with PSP, you have a more niche audience and this niche audience is pretty internet savvy. Among the PSP base it's almost like there is a culture of piracy. I believe it was similar with the Dreamcast base. Apparently Dreamcast got pirated to shit. I'm pretty sure every friend I know with a Dreamcast pirated games for it.

Piracy exists on the Xbox 360 and the Wii but the culture of piracy isn't widespread there because piracy can be costly. I would only recommend Xbox 360 piracy to someone if they were completely ok with a bare bones 360 experience (no online features whatsoever. All those guys on forums with banned 360s post-Borderlands/MW2 who swore by stealth patching and iXtreme keeping you safe from the M$ banhammer feel very stupid now), didn't mind playing buggy games (no patches unless they can track down a title update illicitly somewhere. I've seen these on torrents and what not but I doubt they have every possible title update out there) and wouldn't mind having to buy a replacement in case it breaks down and MS refuses to fix a tampered console. And you have to watch out for bricks when it comes to the Wii and really know what you are doing because one mistake by the end-user can lead to a brick.



NSS7 on 13 February 2010

PSP is a great portable console but it has some major problem.

1) UMD space is to small. Only 1.8gb. If it was 5gb+ we might see lot of big PS2 game ported to PSP like FF, MGS, GTA:SA. PSP graphic is on par with PS2 but because of the sapce they had to sacrifice the graphic to fit the game. This explain why GOW:COO was very short. Dev can make multidisc but i dont think it is suitable for portable console.

2) No 2nd analog. FPS, racing suffer the most from this.

Anyway PSP is still doing great and able to grab 30% of portable market share. At least it managed to cmopete with Nintendo at the beginning. This year is great year fro PSP owner. KH:BBS, MGS:PW, Valkyria Chronicle 2, Persona 3, God Eater, Tales of VS. Even better than 2009.



Pristine20 on 13 February 2010

I personally think it's already dead outside JP as opposed to "dying".



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Legend11 on 14 February 2010

I'm always surprised when western third party like EA or Ubisoft announces a game for the PSP.



arsenicazure on 14 February 2010

41.6k= atleast half a million dollars in hardware sales. Couple that with software and your looking at $1-1.5million+.. with no marketing costs required at this point. I'd say SONY isnt culling the ps2 right now. Its a very very "niche" product. But it continues to sell well( for a 10+ yrs old console).

Its got another year a life in it at the very least and is probably helping to absorb some of the PS3 costs.

As for the PSP.. well.. I think it needs to move to carts. Flash memory prices are relatively low- Im sure a 1-2GB cart wouldnt cost much- and I would gladly pay for it.

PSP users are illegaly gaming on memory sticks, why not just acknowledge its superiority over UMD and make some sales in the process.



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owner of : atari 2600, commodore 64, NES,gameboy,atari lynx, genesis, saturn,neogeo,DC,PS2,GC,X360, Wii

5 THINGS I'd like to see before i knock out:

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c. redesgined PS controller

d. SEGA back in the console business

e. M$ out of the OS business

Darc Requiem on 14 February 2010
Malachi said:
Darc Requiem said:
PSP software sales have always been horrid outside of Japan. The hardware always sold pretty well until recently. Sony needs to cut the price on the PSP or it's finished.

That not true at all, look at the americain chart and you'll notice that the attach rate is much better than in Japan(that true for all console too), it has about 50 million more games sold there than in Japan with a 5 million bigger userbase. what killed the PSP wasn't piracy like so many wish to believe (like so many wish to believe that DD sale on it is anywhere good) but the lack of third party support from western developer and Sony itself(though it can be excused to have focused on the PS3 when it was in trouble).

It had good support from japenese developer at the beginning and had at least GTA when it come to western franchise. The problem was that almost all the japenese support were niche game in the west except for SE one and that no western one jumped in the bandwagon after the GTA success. The big western developer(EA,Activison,THQ,Take2) don't seem to be interested in handheld at all, they only make game that are attached to a console game(that include the 5m GTA games), except for Ubisoft which milked a few handheld franchise on the DS for a while until people caugth on and stopped buying them.

Then Nintendo started to release their massive seller and the japanese developer who wanted to sell game in the west started to jump ship(SE being the main one) which left Sony with only the like of KOEI as company that supported the PSP more than the DS. Then SONY caugth a break and one of the PSP game became a runaway hit and a system seller, only in Japan however which didn't help in the west. Then the next installement moved to console, not even their, when Capcom wanted to make it big oversea which probably killed any hope for it's ressurection in the west. SONY tried last years with a good deal of marketing even some viral one, finaly a big first party game (GT) and a remodel which actually changed something. It failed though and I really wonder what SONY next move is going to be now.

Malachi when is the last time a PSP title has charted in the Top 10 for month? Or even the top 20 for that matter. The software sales are almost always the same for the month. You'll see Wii, 360, PS3, and even DS games but no PSP titles.



GuyDuke on 14 February 2010

Yes unfortunately the PSP is slowly dying while the DS keeps its momentum worldwide.



Dgc1808 on 14 February 2010
Cold Light said:
PSP is about six years on market and continue to selling not bad today.
It sold 50+ million consoles.
It made 30 million seller titles.
It made a fanbase too.

So, PSP is already successful console. But PSP's life time comes nearer to the end.
I sure, Sony understand this. No doubt, they are developing the next portable console, I think it will be announced on E3.

PSP2 will have all chances to be successful too, but Sony exactly need to take into account mistakes of first console, piracy first of all. =)

This. Considering it's not a Nintendo Handheld, the PSP's been doing pretty damn well at it's price.



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