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Forums - Sales Discussion - Is the Playstation Portable doomed?

a.l.e.x59 on 11 May 2007

Over 20 million Playstation Portables have been sold world wide. Over 40 million Nintendo DSs have been sold world wide. This does not neccessarily make the Playstation Portable a failure, but compared to the Nintendo DS, it certainly isn't a success. However, it has outsold every other portable system not manufactured by Nintendo. Although, it has surpassed Gameboy Micro and Virtual Boys, like many other portables not manufactured by Nintendo, it will probably never surpass sales of the Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance, Gamboy Color, and Gameboy.


However, will the Playstation Portable increase in the number of sales weekly, or will it decrease in the number of sales weekly? Only time will tell. Because most of the good games that were planned to come out for the Playstation Portable have already come out, the future doesn't look to bright for the Playstation Portable, since its video game library doesn't look like it is going to get any better in the future.

I own a Playstation Portable, as well as a Nintendo DS, and many other handhelds.

The Playstation Portable certainly is not a failure compared to other portables such as the Gizmondo, Nokia N-Gage, Atari Lynx, and even Microvision, but some of the reasons why it has not surpassed Nintendo DS include:

1. Price
2. Lack of first party titles
3. Lack of original franchises
4. Lack of non-ported Playstation 2 games

Although the Playstation Portable has superior graphics to the Nintendo DS, it is slightly bigger than the Nintendo DS Lite, has longer loading times, worse battery, no touch-screen functionality, no microphone, has only one screen (but that one screen is almost just as big as both of Nintendo's dual screens put together). It is just as bright as the Nintendo DS, and its sound quality is debatably just as good.

Because Pokemon Pearl and Diamond have been released, we will see a mighty boost of Nintendo DS sales. The sales for the DS will boost even further when The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass comes out, and other good games the future has to offer. I don't think there will be as many, if not at all, strongly anticipated games to come out for the Playstation Portable. But, time will tell.

Other people are looking more negatively towards the Playstation Portable:








I personally enjoy my Playstation Portable. It has one big screen, instead of two smaller screens (yet both screens together almost equal the size of the one, bigger screen of the Playstation Portable (might be bigger, might be smaller)), has great emulating capabilities (another reason why many Playstation Portable games and UMB movies are not selling so strongly) with Atari 2600 games, up to the Playstation Portable. The system looks nice, plays nice, and is very easy to use. It can act as a color camera (Gameboy was able to do this, but was in black and white. I don't know if the Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS can be used as a camera), play music out loud, without the need of using headphones (unlike the iPod), plays movies, surfs the Internet, and shows photos (the Nintendo DS can do all of that too, but at an extra cost, and with lesser quality (although it is cool being able to use touch screen to surf the Internet on the Nintendo DS).

Every single console and portable has its good points, and bad points, but at the end. Every single console and portable is a marvel of incredible wonder. Even the Magnavox Odyssey is a marvelous machine. However, it is the level of supremecy of each console that determines what console is the better one. No console is "better" than another by fact, but by opinions alone. Just because the Nintendo DS is outselling the Playstation Portable does not mean it is better. It means that it is more successful, but the Playstation Portable contains better hardware. And that is the main reason why Sony is dieing in the video game industry. They are focusing too much on hardware, rather than software, and right now, Sony definitely needs to boost its software if it wants to compete with Nintendo and Microsoft, its winning competitors.

Anyways, the PSP has managed to outsell Nintendo DS at certain points of time:



But unfortunately, it couldn't maintain its limited success:


I personally think that the Playstation Portable is not a failure, but compared to the Nintendo DS, is not a success. Right now, I don't see a Playstation Portable 2, nor do I see a Playstation 4, seeing the direction that Sony is heading. But, there is still hope for Sony. It might not be that big, but hope always exists.

If Sony does fail in the hardware deparment, they are likely to "pull a Sega" and make games for other consoles. I mean, Atari is still making games, just like Sega, so Sony may always be in the video game industry. The only thing that Sony is in danger of, is its hardware department. Sure, the Playstation Portable if the most powerful handheld, and the Playstation 3 is the most powerful console, but if Sony doesn't straighten itself out, it will be forced to only focus on games if its drops out of the hardware department.


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a.l.e.x59 on 11 May 2007

*deleted by mod* double post.



ngg12345 on 11 May 2007

I have a question, have you said one positive thing about the ps3, or psp?



PinkPoop on 11 May 2007

Sony is not in the games business, they are in the consumer electronics business. They will not "fail" as a hardware developer.



Sometimes it hurts to go number 2.

Blue3 on 11 May 2007
ngg12345 said:
I have a question, have you said one positive thing about the ps3, or psp?

 Probably the kid is so poor he cant afford either of em.



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Escherichia on 11 May 2007

I think the PSP is a fine piece of hardware. In fact it's almost perfect. I was impressed when I finally got to play a game, Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins. Awesome game. However if there is one thing that bothers me about the system it's the load times, if it didn't have the load times I would most definatlely buy one. Thing is it's unacceptable to have to wait 30 seconds to a minute or seemingly longer in order to play my games on a HANDHELD. Sony really dropped the ball there. Had they made it cart based, well, then it wouldn't be able to play UMDs but then again who cares, I want to play games not tiny movies, though I understand why some people might like that sort of thing. Anyway, the PSP is probably not doomed, it's still a good machine, techincally far superior to the DS, but I doubt it will surpass the DS in sale.



BenKenobi88 on 11 May 2007

I disagree, and I think the PSP is a great success compared to previous competitors with Nintendo's handhelds. Also, Blue3, I'm getting pretty sick of your comments. alex59's idea may be kind of "out there" and I think most people agree that the PSP is a success rather than a failure, but he clearly stated he owns a PSP and enjoys it. Heck, I don't have a PS3 because I'm "poor", I don't see how that is an insult.



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mrstickball on 11 May 2007

I think the question is "what did you expect?" Just because Sony came in, and took the console market from Nintendo, I don't believe the handheld market is the same. As you said, I believe the #1 reason is price. Although it's a great value at $200 or the new price tag of $170, it's still friggin' expensive for a portable gaming device (regardless of extra abilities). I believe Kwaad showed a random poll awhile ago, showing that if the NDS and PSP were the same price, about 50% of people would buy a PSP vs. a DS - a stark contrast from where it is now (it's around 2:1 or so). Games like Vice City Stories and LC Stories did fantastic on PSP. MHP2 in Japan is the highest selling game of the year. It proves that games on PSP can do fantastic. The big question is when are devs going to really mean business? FFT should end up around 400k units in Japan when everything is said and done. IMO, if the PSP wanted to gain some ground vs. the DS (not that it could ever win) they should: #1. Lower the price to no more than $150, or a comparible rate worldwide. #2. Develop more unique titles, and exclusives such as God of War (coming out), Gran Turismo, and other major titles. With the PS3 floundering, PSP sales could give Sony a much-needed boost if they played it smart. #3. Stop advertising it to the 13-17 y/o crowd. Try to explain it's obviously superior multimedia features and abilities instead of just one crowd, it's obnoxious. #4. Coerce new developers via great middleware to port their games to PSP, or create new games on the platform. IMO, you can do so much with the platform if the devs cared (which most don't). If Sony could offer some sort of special abilities to port very good games (like Kingdom Hearts, FFXII, ect) over, it could do really well. Not that Sony really would do it. The PSP could easily sell 50-60m units w/w before it releases a 2nd PSP. However, it will have a hard time when there are no games for it. MHP2 showed that there are TONS of people that'd buy a PSP if there was any relevant software for the system. There is none of that software outside of porn. Sony needs to up the ante, and even consider making a next series title on the PSP exclusively.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

mancandy on 11 May 2007

PSP not doomed. UMD for movies DOOOOOOMED!!!!



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Christopher_G2 on 11 May 2007

If I was going to give one reason that the DS is killing the PSP in sales it would be that the DS is absolutely destroying the PSP in pick up and play games that are important for handhelds to have. The casual gamer or younger gamer that wants a handheld is going to want games you can play in short 5-10 minute bursts becayse they don't want to put in a half hour to an hour every time they turn on their handheld. Brain Age, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, even Mario Bros and Mario Kart, are games you can spend short periods of time on and get some satisfaction on. A game like GTA or MGS require you to put much more time in a sitting unless you want to shut the game down before you even get to a save point.