I was considering getting a handheld system for myself.  My son got a DS for Christmas and I thought either I could get a DS for myself so we could play 2 player or I'd get a PSP so then we could share both and have access to both systems' libraries.  However, in my brief research, it appears the PSP may be dying.  Despite the 42.3 million systems sold according to this site, the PSP sections at the stores I visited were surprisingly small.  Also, www.ebgames.com (Gamestop's website) only lists 17 PSP games coming soon through mid-July.  This is in stark contrast to the 72 games listed as coming soon for the DS.  What's going on with the PSP?  If it is, in fact, dying, why the hell is it still so expensive at $169?

Basically, the system sells fine but the software doesn't bring in very good sells. The ones that did were very rare. (Final Fantasy Tactics, FF7 Crisis Core) So yeah it doesn't get as many games as the DS which seems to move just about everything.

Well I would suggest you a DS given its huge library ( although you have already one so I don't know what to reccomend you ).

From what I see PSP support from western developers is almost ceased however japanese support is growing so if they port their games in the western regions there should be a stream of software for the PSP in the coming months.

Seems to me that SCE isn't doing much to help improve the PSP situation in the western regions ( they seems focused on the PS3 ).

But the PSP does have very good games... It's just that people use it for other things besides the Games. (Or at least the ones released for the PSP anyway.)

The only thing keeping the PSP in the running for my $ is the idea that it can be hacked. I don't normally engage in that sort of thing, but the idea of having a bunch of portable games directly on the PSP itself makes for uber-portability. Most exciting to me is actually the idea that I can put a SNES emulator on there.

The PSP doesn't sell too much software outside Japan and that is a big problem. Apart from that, a lot of people have the PSP hacked, so it reduces even more the posibility of good software sales so 3rd party do not support the system.

As a final point, the competition (DS) is very strong and although PSP hardware sales are not bad, DS hardware sales are out of this world.

Because nearly everyone even little 14 year olds love to hack it, why make games for it, if you know people will just get it for free of the internet..

I have a hacked PSP, its not bad for what it is - when hacked.

Total waste of time though considering its game library if it wasn't hacked.

I hardly touch mine except for playing classic PS1 games and the odd PSP RPG but there's not much decent big budget stuff available for it.

I sometimes think people saying its well supported software wise are off their trolley.

2-3 good games a YEAR do not count as support.

i actually made a thread about psp sections getting smaller
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=53315
but yes the psp is pretty much dead

Hum I think you should get a DS. First I'm not sure if the PSP games will really appeal to your son. Secondly, there are many games you can play in multiplayers with only one copy of the game on the DS. Also, The DS library is so huge than I don't think its truly necessar to have a PSP but that's my personal opinion since the PSP technical aspect is very impressive. The PSP has good game but excepting games like patapon and locoroco you won't find anything really fresh on that system...