I think even without piracy, PSP can do about 40 million consoles, which is a HUGE deal, but now with piracy, Sony might cut PSP's life a bit short. Still, it will probably hit 55 million.

@kingofwale

That is not how software piracy works. In economic terms, the majority of piracy occurs when supply and demand are not in equilibrium. Meaning that most of those who are pirating on their PSPs would not buy the PSP and its software at all if the piracy were not viable and easy.

I agree with half of what you said.

I believe handheld game prices vs quantity demanded is around 25-29 dollars (DS game price), so it's clear that PSP game prices are bit too high.

And also, the prospect of 'free game' get people who wouldn't otherwise own a handheld the right to own one. Those people would otherwise not even be in the market at all. Hence the increase in hardware sales and slightly decrease in software sales.

No one has posted the actual reason for this?! OK, guess I'll have to explain it.

Guys, ioi created this website to track current (7th) generation sales. He's missing massive quantities of data for the period prior to the launch of PS3/Wii in November 2006, particularly PS2 game sales. The Japanese data on this website is accurate (because it relies on old MediaCreate information), but all American weekly sales prior to 2007 are not an accurate depiction of the market. There's simply too many games missing.

In other words, the PSP never had 18 titles in the top 50. It only looks that way because ioi has data for something like 200 out of the 1000+ PS2 games on sale at the time.

My God...i never said the psp failed!!!!

Do you people even read the OP?
(Sorry to those that actually did)

I said look at what it used to be like, and look at it now...anyone who thinks its doing as well now as it did then is just stupid.
Im not comparing it to the ds, im comparing it to itself, 2 years ago.

Its gone from having way more software charting than every other console and handheld except the ps2, to being the one with the least ammount of software charting. I was just asking why you think it changed? And whether this change started with the psp getting hacked or whther there was another cause...

To all the people saying i failed because the psp isnt a failure..learn to read.

Oh ok, hehe i didnt read all the way down because there were so many people saying psp isnt a failure without reading the op.

But thanks Sulla. I didnt realise that a lot of games were missing back then.

Unlike the Xbox, the PSP is on the way to outsell every non-playstation console ever (except perhaps the NES, but the N64 and Genesis are done, and the SNES is next). That's not too bad, imo. The Xbox barely outsold the GC. Locoroco, Lumines, Patapon, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and many others differentiate it from the PS2. Also, it now supports PSN games and PS1 games officially. Oh, and it's definitely not too heavy (I have the original).

 Psp hacking is free. You get everything you need with the PSP. Nothing to buy. Nothing to order.

How is the DS 'MUCH easier time, cheaper cost" than that? There are  68,000,000 DS' out there. How many of these modded DS carts have been sold? 1million? Less?  There are 32M PSP's out there. Every single one is hackable out of the box. The PS2 had hardware hacks as well, and hardware hacks are used by a small percentage of the ownership population. PSP doesn't require any hardware hacks so it if ar fare more widespread.

It's not unfair, it is the truth. PSP is effortlessly hackable. There hasn't been any bricking issues since 2006.

Looking at those software numbers, it's not that it "fell" so far so much as it being trampled by 3 new platforms on the market.

Well, I wouldn't call the PSP a failure. Without comparing it to the DS it's actually pretty successful for Sony's first attempt at a hand held. Though i would say that there is an idea flaw about the PSP, the whole idea that it's a home console on the go isn't too bright of an idea. If consumers want a home entertainment experience, it would make alot more sense to have it on the big screen at home rather than on the road. The DS is more of a pick up and play handheld, which is really what handhelds should be. I think if Sony went with that idea (simple gaming on the road) instead of of "high end gaming on the road" and kept the great multimedia functions, it would have been much better.

And as for homebrew "killing" the PSP....
that can go both ways, ALOT of people bought the PSP JUST for homebrew. So without homebrew, the PSP might have just turned into a system that sell hardly any hardware and had decent software sales.