...what does "blockbuster" mean? Anything the marketing department wants it to :)

On the plus side, congrats to the PSP for being one of the few handheld consoles that challenged Nintendo and survived.

rocketpig said: LordTheNightKnight said: It's too late to become king of the mountain again, but it can still become a hit system. It's ten million units behind the Genesis, the lowest selling system that is still considered a blockbuster system. So if the PSP outsells the Genesis, it's made it. There will be no question it's a hit system (aside from bashers denying it). That's not an accurate evaluation of the situation. Comparing a nearly 20 year old console to a handheld today is ridiculous. The gaming market is leaps and bounds beyond what it was in 1993 and the Genesis was a console that launched at $199 in 1989 vs. a $199 launch in 2005 for the PSP. According to the Consumer Price Index, $199 in 1989 dollars is now $323. There are a few other factors, too. The PSP sales have never been that disappointing but the software sales are absymal. That is what developers and Sony focus on and that's where the real money is made in this business. The PSP is failing miserably in that category. Over the long run, I think the PSP will be fine but it will never be considered a blockbuster system.

I wrote units, not price. The fact is that any system that sold less than 35 million units is considered either lackluster or a flop, regardless of when the systems were available. Anything above is considered a blockbuster system. That was all I meant.

What was I telling you ... I could see a PSP2 comming ~ 2010 and untill than the PSP will probably pass the 60 million and I see it , if it continues to sell well , to reach lifetime even the 70 million mark ...

hunter_alien said: What was I telling you ... I could see a PSP2 comming ~ 2010 and untill than the PSP will probably pass the 60 million and I see it , if it continues to sell well , to reach lifetime even the 70 million mark ...

I'm curious, so let's do some math. I'd like to estimate what it can do. Let's assume that the PSP maintains it's current momentum until 2010. For the past few weeks, it's been selling an average of 70,000 units per region (North America, Japan, Other) per week. That's 210,000 total per week, and 840,000 per month. Since we're at the start of November, that's 26 months until 2010. 840,000 x 26 = 21,840,000. Add that to the 26,140,000 already sold, and we have 47,980,000 by January 2010. And that doesn't even include the upcoming Japan numbers.

Again, that's assuming the sales rate stays as it is. If it dropes by half (not the worst case scenario, but the most likely worst case one), that's still just over 10 million, still enough to outsell the Genesis. If it doubles, that would be just over 60 million. However, doubling that would take a major upswing, even more than the boost the Slim gave. So I would say a slight upswing is the most likely scenario. Yet that would still be a major victory to outsell the SNES and Gameboy Color.

Where are you coming up with all these trends and averages? The Game Boy launched in 1989 and was supported for 10 years -- 13 years if you count the Game Boy Color. The Game Gear lasted 7 years. Then Nintendo's handheld department developed ADD and started throwing around systems left and right, but even the GBA is still being supported and is going on 7 years now. As for Sony, not only do they not usually get their platforms out in 5 years, they have yet to do so with any system they've made.

There have been a lot of forgettable handhelds from companies no one remembers over the years that've had much shorter lifespans, but as far as reasonably successful handhelds from reputable companies go, the trend has actually been towards lifespans longer than home consoles.

AM I the only one that thinks the PSP and DS both service a different crowd? ( a small percentage of hardcore gamers aside that is) In my book the DS always seemed the more casual handheld and the PSP the more "serious" one.

Comparing sales between those 2 always seems so irrelevant to me.

Gazz said: AM I the only one that thinks the PSP and DS both service a different crowd? ( a small percentage of hardcore gamers aside that is) In my book the DS always seemed the more casual handheld and the PSP the more "serious" one. Comparing sales between those 2 always seems so irrelevant to me.

As someone who has both, I can say with certainty that you are completely incorrect.  The 3rd party support on the DS means it gets many more 3rd party core games than the PSP does and of many mroe genres.  You don't think Sony wants Contra, Dragon Quest, tons of new Square games, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, etc. on the PSP?  Of course they do, and those are "serious" games as you call them.  They absolutely compete directly for the same gamers, and the DS absolutely has more of them, and because of that gets more big games.

The PSP is

naznatips said: Gazz said: AM I the only one that thinks the PSP and DS both service a different crowd? ( a small percentage of hardcore gamers aside that is) In my book the DS always seemed the more casual handheld and the PSP the more "serious" one. Comparing sales between those 2 always seems so irrelevant to me. As someone who has both, I can say with certainty that you are completely incorrect. The 3rd party support on the DS means it gets many more 3rd party core games than the PSP does and of many mroe genres. You don't think Sony wants Contra, Dragon Quest, tons of new Square games, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, etc. on the PSP? Of course they do, and those are "serious" games as you call them. They absolutely compete directly for the same gamers, and the DS absolutely has more of them, and because of that gets more big games.

 Their games are completely different though, psp games are similar to PS2 games and they take longer to make than DS games that are similar to GBA games(with a touch screen and slightly better graphics), so it's obvious that DS gets more games, but PSP games take much longer to complete, and have much more depth, as I said before, it's like comparing a PS2 game to a GBA game, monster hunter portable takes longer time to complete than 10(if not more) of the longest DS games put together, and yes I own both handhelds.

naznatips said: Gazz said: AM I the only one that thinks the PSP and DS both service a different crowd? ( a small percentage of hardcore gamers aside that is) In my book the DS always seemed the more casual handheld and the PSP the more "serious" one. Comparing sales between those 2 always seems so irrelevant to me. As someone who has both, I can say with certainty that you are completely incorrect. The 3rd party support on the DS means it gets many more 3rd party core games than the PSP does and of many mroe genres. You don't think Sony wants Contra, Dragon Quest, tons of new Square games, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, etc. on the PSP? Of course they do, and those are "serious" games as you call them. They absolutely compete directly for the same gamers, and the DS absolutely has more of them, and because of that gets more big games.

 The PSP has a list of games that other companys would like too. There's an call of duty on the PSP, they have their Jax, tons of racing games, strategy and a load more of games like God of war which tons of companys would kill for. I am not denying the DS doesn't have enough games or any fanboy crap like that.

I have both the PSP and DS too, I just really think the DS adresses a completely different market then the PSP does and these handhelds don't compete with eachother, but complete one another. Both have their pros and cons and having both gives a gamer the best of two worlds. I still believe that comparing sales is irrelevant.