So how long before the PSP is discontinued?

@Onimusha: Basically 2009 could be the critical year, depending on Sonys financials overall and the profitability of PSP as a whole.

Btw. the numbers in your sig are for Americas only. You should mention that in the sig too.

Onimusha12 said: So how long before the PSP is discontinued?

Sony makes profit on the hardware (they pointed out profitability was helped by strong PSP hardware sales in the last report), so there's probably not much reason for it to be discontinued until hardware sales are quite low.

 

Sony always emphasized the multi-purpose nature of PSP, if HW sales are still good and produce profit, why stop production, but it will have to live with resellers giving less space to goods related to PSP that fare poorly. UMD movies and PSP games not top selling will have to content themselves of the same amount of shelf space resellers give, for example, to plush cellphone covers
Not an absolutely bad thing, Sony is surviving to these hits and we should hope it will learn from them, just like MS and Nintendo too learned a lot from past mistakes.
Not a bad thing twice, as Wii rise avoided a Sony near monopoly on not portable consoles, while Sony first attempt with PSP, with a decent 30+%HW and small, but not insignificant SW sales avoided a Nintendo total monopoly on portables.

@Alby: There's also the thing, that in order for the PSP (and any other product), to remain profitable, it needs to remain a certain production and shipment level. If PSP hardware keeps selling, it shouldn't have profitability issues, but if sales go down, the profit margin may go down too.

Although this has changed with the new DS which has meda functionality etc.

@Kyros: You mean the camera DSi has in it?
Basically DS has had a number of functionalities, but they have been available only with peripherals.

Among others. Besides the camera I mean the internet browser (without module), the new SD slot for music and picture storage. It clearly is an attempt at duplicating the multi-functionality approach of the PSP although it doesn't go as far (no video?, no skype ...)

We will have ever more devices that converge. Single-use devices are dying. Many small devices are now extraordinarily powerful, have a nice screen and have internet access which enables them to do almost everything. But they will always be especially good at something because there are still some hardware limitations. The lenses and electronics of good digital cameras will keep them safe for a while. Portable game consoles are shielded from phones by the different requirements regarding user input and different size restrictions. Phones need to fit in a pocket, a PSP or DS will most of the time be in a backpack etc.

arsenicazure said: Ok i have played the PSP a bit, not as much as the DS though and my biggest gripe is that awful UMD.. that kills the battery.. and the dearth of titles on it.. everyone i know has hacked it. But kudos to SONY for standing upto nintendo and holding 30% of marketshare on its own. Bravo. PSP2 should defntly be a nintendo ass kicker.

Thats the problem, 'everyone i know has hacked it', I too know a lot of people who have their PSPs hacked and only get pirated games. I think pirarcy is worst on the PSP than the PC.

The problem with the PSP is lack of support from Western developers and Sony itself, they do not produce enough games to keep the system alive, it does get good japanese support but thats not enough to sell software in EU/America.

PSP has some good games but it just needs more support from its own company. Because it sill is a good piece of hardware.