Warning:  The following statements are somewhat poorly-organized opinions and collective thoughts made by the original poster and are not intended to offend, call flame wars, insult anyone in any shape or fashion or cause general discomfort to the mind, body and soul.  You have been forewarned.

What gives?  The Playstation Portable should be selling like hotcakes.  It has the ever-strong Playstation logo and is a part of the Playstation family, why has it reached at least 50 million yet?  I believe the PSP is Sony's first gaming console "failure."  It's by no means a commercial failure but it's the first Playstation product that's not the leader of its respective market.  My reasoning for this is...

1.) The Playstation Portable is being marketed as a multimedia device.   The PSP's multimedia applications is a strength in the eyes of gamers and Sony fans but it's showing to be a weakness as it broadens its competition.  That means it's not only competing with Nintendo's DS but it's also competiting directly with the popular Ipod and to a lesser extent, Cell Phones, Digitial Cameras, The Zune and others.

2.) The design is a bit dated.  I've seen a few complaints with the PSP being that it looks like a GBA.  If compared closely, The PSP and GBA have some similarities but some differences that make each their own handheld.  Much like the Wii has a "nex-gen" controller while the PS3 and Xbox 360 have "last gen" controllers, the lack of an additional touch screen is really hurting the PSP appeal as the DS's touch screen and touch screens in general are being accepted as advancements in technology.

3.) The future library of the PSP is poor at best.  Going by this http://www.gamestop.com/browse/search.aspx?Ns=Sort_ETA|0&N=5+136, there is only one game being released for the PSP between now and January(in the US).  We all know that Software boosts hardware, so a lack of software is something to take note of.

4.) The PSP is competiting with the successor of the Gameboy Advance.   If memory serves, the GBA sold about 81.24 million units and I'm sure a large part of DS owners were once or still are GBA owners.  That said, the PSP should have Playstation 2 owners backing it up.. but wait.. where are the PS2 owners?  I'm sure they're somewhere right?  Though I can't back this up, it's plausible that several PS2 owners aren't very open to handheld gaming.  Truly a pity.

Bottom line, I believe the PSP doesn't have a consistent audience.  It gets multiplatform games but they seem to sell more on consoles despite their higher prices and the need for multimedia is being entertained by the Ipod and others.  Also the need for handheld gaming is being entertained with more titles on the DS.  The PSP is looking more niche by the day and I hope Sony responses to this soon.  It's truly not a bad handheld.

Bumped.

I'm amazed that the PSP didn't attain a larger install base and it's too late for it to do so now. It has a large library of quality games (my favorite for any handheld) and a low price point which should have garnered more success. Sony really should not have focused on second rate multi-media capabilities and should have instead focused on advertising its hardcore games and producing more casual friendly games.

I personally think that Sony was not ready to compete on 2 fronts.  For right now, the PSP is making them profit but not as much as I would expect from a Playstation product.  If they advertise the PSP too much, they may lose even more on top of PS3 losses.  Just more of my thoughts.

Isn't PSP on its way to comfortably outsell SNES (and perhaps even legendary NES/Famicom)? That's pretty impressive if you ask me.

When you compare the PSP's ~40 million units to the PS1's 100 million units and PS2's 120 million units, It's not very impressive.

Hardware sales are only half the picture though. Software is where the bulk of profits are made. The attach rate is shrinking which is not a good sign for software sales.

Did PSP suddenly stop selling, because you're comparing current PSP figure with LTD figures?

I think another big issue is that it doesn't set itself apart from it's home console brothers to make it a viable choice for gamers.

By design and particularly in comparison to its competition, it is hardly a portable device. Big, heavy and with a not stellar battery life means that it's not as useful as a portable gaming device as a DS (from a purely physical standpoint). On top of that, the design of the console AND the games library it has doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the PS1 and PS2.

Why would I (or any consumer for that matter), spend money on a new console to play games I've already played on my home console (PS2) with lesser graphics and most likely less content. I know the issue is being addressed (sort of) with games like patapon, but the PSP hasn't shown itself (to me) that it is a worth the money as a gaming platform (particularly in the age of Ipod, which is a much better multimedia device)

Good point but I'm talking about solely hardware.