Sony. A company that has seen its share of success and failures. The hardware giant invented the Walkman; and that’s way before Apple ever thought of the iPod. It provided music on the go before any other firm and in those times, was known as one of the most innovative companies. Sony also had the first online music store dubbed “Sony Connect”.

So what happened? Why did the giant allow Apple, according to Pachter, to eat “their lunch”? Find out past the break.

“You know, I feel bad for Sony and PSP,” Pachter said in the latest episode of his show, Pach-Attack when asked if Sony should abandon the PSP. “Because way before you guys were born, around the time of apocalypse now 1972, Sony had the Walkman and I remember when we first saw it people said, ‘this is the coolest thing ever,” Pachter continued.

“I mean Sony invented the hand-held music device, what a cool thing! headphones, listen to music on the go. And then they turned it into the disc man, they made MP3 players and Apple ate their lunch with the iPod.”

“So how did that happen?” Pachter asked, “Sony had the first online music store with Sony Connect – Apple ate their lunch with Itunes so Sony didn’t invent the video game business, Nintendo and many of its competitors did. Sony was a late entry in that, got that right – Sony is a late entry into the hand held business and they haven’t yet gotten it right,” Pachter said.

He added: “What they did with the PSP which I thought was brilliant at the time, was that they positioned it older. They said the DS has a bunch of “cartooney” games, you know Pokemon – games that are skewed a little bit younger – we’re going to have the PSP and we’re going to have Grant Theft Auto and we’re going to have really cool, edgy, Monster Hunter kind of games and we’re going to capture that older audience and it didn’t work.”

Pachter said the reason PSP was/is not successful is because Sony “over-engineered it” making the hand held other functions somewhat confusing. He also said the giant failed hard when it decided to price the PSPgo higher, when a DS costs almost half the amount.

What do you think, is PSP doomed?

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2010/03/27/pachter-i-feel-bad-for-sony-on-the-psp-apple-ate-their-lunch/

Japan still loves it. Anyway I guess that the problems are:

1.- It was launched as a media device to see movies, listen music, sharing photos, etc. All of that in a tiny screen with a inconvenient media storage (UMD) worst most of the movies released were utter crap and even the cheapest version of an iPod is a much better music device. (because they have a convenient size and audio quality, honestly I don't want to have a PSP in my pocket)

2.- Piracy.

I don't know what's going to happen with Sony's next handheld but I want a pure gaming device, not a multifunctional "yadda yadda" full of useless apps and cheap games. (we got the iPhone for that)

I didn't know Sony invented the mobile music player =O

Not yet. I am hoping for psp 2 to come out.

Besides the low software sales, partially due to piracy, the psp is doing great! I do not get why 57m is bad, shit this thing will hit 60+ this year.

No one needed to eat Sony's lunch on this on because they ate it all by themselves.....

1. Pachter's got some girly hands

2. No wonder he makes all those good predictions, he's got a crystal ball.

3. It was the first go around for the PSP, I don't see how the 55mil (can't remember the actual number) is bad. You gotta compare this to the Xbox or to the ps3's online system. There's still plenty to learn, and lots of room for improvement. Hopefully sony takes everything they've learned (assuming they've learned things lol) and improve on the new one, so that they've got an enticing product to compete w/ the 3ds that'll be coming out.

4. i personally like the idea of being able to watch movies and all on it, it's just gotta be done better with nicer media storage.

Not exactly. There's this guy called Andreas Pavel who invented the device in 1972, he took his invention to Philips and other companies but they turned it down (duh) latter in 1979 Sony started to sell walkmans (Andreas0s invention) but they didn't recognized Pavel as the inventor, later in 1986 they decide to pay fees BUT ONLY FOR THE GERMAN sales of the devices.

Yeah Sony pretty much is a heartless corporation that uses every single legal loop for its benefit. Back in 2003 Pavel started a new lawsuit and Sony decide to settle a new arrangement for a secret sum (some people says it for 10 millions) Also Sony decided to give Pavel credit for his invention .... after the death of Akio Morita, the guy who was credited before.

Its just being outcompeted by specialist devices/other companies doing it better.

1. Gaming it gets crushed by the DS.
2. Music it gets crushed by iPhone, iTouch, iPod + other similar.
3. Movies is sort of half dead/half alive but I doubt it'll survive the launch of the iPad/Courier + others.

I don't really think piracy comes into it, the DS is infact even easier to pirate and the PC is easier again to pirate and yet games still sell.

Well to be fair, I don't think he said that it is necessarily doomed, or on its own, a complete failure, but he did imply that other companies are doing better by getting sales that Sony should have gotten, had they been able to position themselves properly.

It's like the 3D thing. Nintendo is now going to eat Sony's lunch with the 3DS by having the first dedicated 3D gaming device on them market without the requirement to wear glasses or buy a new TV.

3D was Sony's gimmick, but can you imagine the 3DS(once it gets into the minds of the general public for its new 3D gimmick) not eventually selling a hundred million units? Once again, that was Sony's lunch. 3D. They just aren't going to get to the market with it, and by the time they do, it'll be old hat.