Is there a risk Sony will end up dropping the PSP brand and not do handheld gaming?  If there is a risk, what factors would determine whether or not Sony ends up staying in or dropping out of the handheld market?

They are profitting, and could continue to profit on the PSP.

PSP, by the end of its lifetime could be way over 70 Million units sold.


Sony WILL make another handheld. They wont throw away so much potential profit.

Extremely unlikely,the PSP has sold too much.

The key is profitability then?  I was wonder what other factors are involved, because people are asking if Microsoft is going to pull out of the console market, if Natal fails, and the 360 is currently profitable for Microsoft.  I asked, because I have been under the impression that the PSP Go has bombed.  I would assume, if Sony did the next PSP, that it is going the way of digital download.  It looks like retailers don't support this, and Sony doesn't have a distribution network like Apple.  If Sony does another PSP, what factors will hing on them hanging around to do a third?

And I ask about profitability, because profits and losses in the past are considered "sunk".

Profitabilty and brand power, IMO.

The next PSP wont feature just DD. It will have disc-based tech inside. They have learned that DD-only isn't the way to go with the PSP Go.

But i see this thrad is just a reaction to some 360 doom thread. So i'm done here. Cya.

Flash storage is large enough that they could deliver games on Memory Stick at this point.  A 2-4 gig memory stick would be an improvement over UMD in every possible way except that it's slightly more expensive.  The don't HAVE to have disc based technology and I"m hoping they don't for battery life reasons alone.

Less profitable revenue coming in
Negative image for the brand

The PSP's sales are eclipsed by other portable devices and it didn't hurt Nintendo the way Sony wanted it to but it has to be considered a success. Has any portable console without the word "Nintendo" on the box sold as well? This gen is a bit of an anomaly to me. It's like Ricky Bobby is running things and he said "If you're not first, you're last". Not being first isn't failing......unless you're talking about boxing.

The PSPGo has not bombed in my opinion because it's just another PSP. which is i think some view the PSPGo as a seperate platform from the other PSP's. but the way i see it's just another PSP. the price more than anything has held up the PSPGo and Sony infact know's this.

Sony also know's they can lower the device's price to further increase sales. If anything the PSPGo like the PS3 has a slow start due to the main thing that keep's the sale's low

the

PRICE!

the PSPGo has better hardware in it than the other PSP's so the price was going to be higher than the  other PSP's

but since the PSPGo can further get plenty of support from game's from the PSN which the PSP is getting the PSPGo will gain further market share traction later rather than sooner. It does not have to beat Nintendo it just has to be able to have enough viability in profit's to remain viable. which selling over 50+ million unit's for the PSP platform as a whole world wide is quite a viable platform.

Now with the strong rumor of SE smartphone's poised to also gain PSN function's IE: playstation portable game playing and other function's. I think the direction of the PSP as just one platform is more like the direction of the PSP is many Playstation portable platform's.

not just the PSP alone.

I think Sony are going to stay in the handheld market at least another generation, they've learned some lessons from the PSP and earned enough profit to have another stab at it.

I think the next PSP will have both physical games and digital games. All games will require a PSN release, but a physical release will be optional. Hopefully the UMD will die and be replaced with memorysticks in some shape or form.

I think Sony will want to tap into the iPhone-market as well, and make the PSP2 a phone, as they already have the Sony Ericsson division available, and I'm guessing it will be based on Android.

I just hope Sony realize that they can't get away with making a traditional handheld coupled with a phone in it, they need something that will make it unique or it will be butchered by the iPhone and 3DS. And no, additional power doesn't make it unique. Nor does a touchscreen.