Agreed, I think the battery life is also a big killer for the PSP. What did they get it up to 9 hours? Thats barely a single transatlantic flight. I'm flying to Hawaii next week and I expect to be stuck in airport terminals and stuck on the tarmac for about 3 hours a piece. Then there's the car ride to the airport, the 12 hour flight, etc.

The original GameBoy was sold as something for kids to do in car rides and flights. The PSP simply doesn't have the battery life for this sort of lifesytle. The DS isn't much better but every hour helps.

/Loves his GPA SP, 22 hour battery life if back light is off.

Dryden said: Does anybody know what the PSP originally cost to manufacture? I'm curious whether the losses on the hardware side put the platform in a hole, given the software and UMD film sales didn't take off to the levels Sony had hoped. While the platform itself has been successful by measure of its overall sales numbers, as a business the venture has probably been a bit underwhelming to Sony. They were planning to lose money with the platform right out of the gate, but then having to drop the launch price further when Nintendo beat them with the September 20, 2004 announce by one hour -- that was another $50-$100 lopped off, depending on region and bundle. When the business model is to sell the hardware at a loss and make up the money on software, can you really call the platform a success if the software isn't selling?

Well with Sony's rate of downsizing cost on hardware, I'm not sure if they were losing money for very long :/ but as far as R&D and such I can see your point, I'd almost be willing to bet that what little software they have sold they probably paid for it in itself already.

I have no idea what will happen to the PSP but I do know that it is the most disappointed gaming unit I have purchased in quite some time. The game release schedule is a joke and my DS gets at least 10 times the play.

It's really too bad because the little handheld has some real potential under that screen. It's unfortunate that the games don't take advantage of it better (looking right at you GTA:VCS and your ridiculous and frequent load times).

ChronotriggerJM said: Well with Sony's rate of downsizing cost on hardware, I'm not sure if they were losing money for very long :/ but as far as R&D and such I can see your point, I'd almost be willing to bet that what little software they have sold they probably paid for it in itself already.

I guess what I'm asking is whether there is a price deconstruction that can peg the original cost. For example, the PS3 was estimated to be around $830/per to manufacture (or some such) at launch. I know there's a lot more to it with marketing and R&D and so forth, but we should still be able to get a raw figure for per unit costs.

So let's say Sony sold 2M PSPs at a loss of $100, then they sold 5M PSPs at a loss of $50, and so on and so on ... Sure they're not losing as much money as the lifecycle goes on into its third and fourth year, but they might have to sell 10 units in 2007 to make back the money that one unit lost in 2005. I'm not able to find articles about this stuff as readily as what I can see for home consoles. How many units did they sell before they were breaking even?

It'd be neat to plot this out on two graphs, and see how many sold for a loss, how many sold at break even, and how many sold for profit, adjusting for when price drops occured. I'm wondering where the intersection point was for the PSP when Sony stopped losing money on it. Do we even know if they've reached that point yet?

So.. for how long there wil be PSP and DS on the market, a mean, when will come NEXT Nintendo and Sony handheld?

Dryden said: ChronotriggerJM said: Well with Sony's rate of downsizing cost on hardware, I'm not sure if they were losing money for very long :/ but as far as R&D and such I can see your point, I'd almost be willing to bet that what little software they have sold they probably paid for it in itself already. I guess what I'm asking is whether there is a price deconstruction that can peg the original cost. For example, the PS3 was estimated to be around $830/per to manufacture (or some such) at launch. I know there's a lot more to it with marketing and R&D and so forth, but we should still be able to get a raw figure for per unit costs. So let's say Sony sold 2M PSPs at a loss of $100, then they sold 5M PSPs at a loss of $50, and so on and so on ... Sure they're not losing as much money as the lifecycle goes on into its third and fourth year, but they might have to sell 10 units in 2007 to make back the money that one unit lost in 2005. I'm not able to find articles about this stuff as readily as what I can see for home consoles. How many units did they sell before they were breaking even? It'd be neat to plot this out on two graphs, and see how many sold for a loss, how many sold at break even, and how many sold for profit, adjusting for when price drops occured. I'm wondering where the intersection point was for the PSP when Sony stopped losing money on it. Do we even know if they've reached that point yet?

 Well I know sales for the PSP took a recent boom in hardware, and they also released the slim which makes them a considerable ammount per unit, I think they've been profiting off hardware since around 15m units on the market, of course I just pulled that out of my ass but it seems like a good number >_>

Ajax said: yes, that's what I mean that's why the hardware sales are still respectable while you can complain about the software sales and besides that look at europe the PSP has sold more units than the 64, NES, SNES, DC, Mega Drive, Xbox or Gamecube have in Europe and the 360 won't cath it either and saying that it's done that because it's a handheld and cheaper won't cut it, because the GBA has been greatly outsold buy the PSX and PS2 eventhough it was cheaper too.. so for a first handheld of Sony, you should rather call it a succes than a failure..

Nintendo's first handheld, the Gameboy, did good, so Sony's Playstation Portable, being Sony's first handheld, is no excuse for its low sales. They need to focus more on games. Everything these days can play music, videos, display pictures, and surf the Internet. Everything! $40 MP3 players from China can do almost everything the Playstation Portable can, and almost just as good too, except for the games! Ever since Sony went "multimedia," their hardware sales have decreased!

hunter_alien said: Kasz216 said: leo-j said: @superdave Its not fanoyish its true, most people dont even know you can hack the ds.. I didnt. You don't even really have to hack it. You just need to buy a passthrough device. It's ridiculiously easy. You only have to download some free software to your PSP , and youl be able to play free games , you dont even have to go out and buy a passtrough . The issue is , that many people abuse the homebrew capabilities . Now they only play SNES games on it , but next time theyl get full PSP games for free :(

Yeah, i know. But your average joe is going to know more and have an easier time buying somethign they see advertised online then they will downloading a program on some website, because you have to know what that website is... know how to put it in... it's just too much of a pain for the average consumer. Pretty much only the people who want to pirate it in the first place are going to be the ones to pirate it. I mean, i've actually seen advertisments for the damn DS hacking things.

Kasz216 said: hunter_alien said: Kasz216 said: leo-j said: @superdave Its not fanoyish its true, most people dont even know you can hack the ds.. I didnt. You don't even really have to hack it. You just need to buy a passthrough device. It's ridiculiously easy. You only have to download some free software to your PSP , and youl be able to play free games , you dont even have to go out and buy a passtrough .   The issue is , that many people abuse the homebrew capabilities . Now they only play SNES games on it , but next time theyl get full PSP games for free :( Yeah, i know. But your average joe is going to know more and have an easier time buying somethign they see advertised online then they will downloading a program on some website, because you have to know what that website is... know how to put it in... it's just too much of a pain for the average consumer. Pretty much only the people who want to pirate it in the first place are going to be the ones to pirate it. I mean, i've actually seen advertisments for the damn DS hacking things.

 Bealive me , thats not the case with teens ... most whom buy a PSP know how they can downgrade it , or at least know somebody who cant .

 

Oh , and people , if you cant find no good game from the PSPs library , than the problem is with you . I lol so hard when Nintendo fans praise mediocre 3D Gamecube games , as their personal favorites , and then come and bash the PSP , saying that it has no good games ...  

a.l.e.x59 said: Ajax said: yes, that's what I mean that's why the hardware sales are still respectable while you can complain about the software sales and besides that look at europe the PSP has sold more units than the 64, NES, SNES, DC, Mega Drive, Xbox or Gamecube have in Europe and the 360 won't cath it either and saying that it's done that because it's a handheld and cheaper won't cut it, because the GBA has been greatly outsold buy the PSX and PS2 eventhough it was cheaper too.. so for a first handheld of Sony, you should rather call it a succes than a failure.. Nintendo's first handheld, the Gameboy, did good, so Sony's Playstation Portable, being Sony's first handheld, is no excuse for its low sales. They need to focus more on games. Everything these days can play music, videos, display pictures, and surf the Internet. Everything! $40 MP3 players from China can do almost everything the Playstation Portable can, and almost just as good too, except for the games! Ever since Sony went "multimedia," their hardware sales have decreased!

 The Gameboy did good in 10 yeasr , you should never forget that . Also , the GB had absolutly no rival back than , while the having to race with the fastest selling console of all ( DS ) is not a small thing . Also , the GB had more redesigns , from wich 3 main models existed : GB , GBP and GBC .... so yeah , its easy to say that the GB did well , when it had a 10 year long lifecicle ...