As time goes on, we see the sales of Sony's PSP dry up. Software titles don't push as much as we all first expected when the handheld was launched and compared to the DS the library for the PSP is rather limited. But what was it that made the PSP this way? Was it the lack of a strong library? The lack of a second Analog nub? Piracy? What was it? I'm not too sure but for the first few months that they were both on market wasn't the PSP outselling the DS? Or was the DS' touch screen capabilities just to much for Sony's Black Blunder?

Personally I think it was the piracy that ended up destroying the system's potential, and made devs weary about putting their titles on a console with such a high piracy rate.

Thoughts?

OP's perspective is flawed.

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I think all things considered the PSP has been a pretty big success, a good foundation for a continued success, which no other competitor to Nintendo in the hand held market can say. And really, the PSP's library really isn't that limited, PS1 titles alone make it great.

I would say heavy piracy for the PSP probably affected it quite a bit. The piracy numbers for software on the PSP is VERY high. This in turn, may have caused developers to be more causes about releasing too much software on the handheld for risk of not making much profit if any. The PSP does have a great library of games, but the DS has a way stronger library.

i think those 55milion were a great success...

Piracy has also greatly helped sell the PSP though, due to it's ability to emulate so much. That's a major benefit to gamers into older titles who would like to play them on the go.

Quoting myself (important part bolded):

"There's a common believe that piracy is source of the problem. I believe it's not, not entirely. Piracy is an effect of a bigger problem, not a cause. Usually people are reffering to PSP demography, when speaking about it's piracy.

According to John Koller's interview he gave to Wired this year, 40% of PSP demography are teens 13-17 y.o. (he didn't specify the details, but I suppose those're likely males), that's basicaly all info on PSP audience to date from Sony themselves afaik. Some people say this demography is likely to pirate since they have ability and knowledge to pirate and aren't fully independent financially, thus explaining relatively low PSP attach rate btw. That's a reasonable argument (but again some claim at the same time that "hardcore" buy more software - I'm confused)... but if PSP piracy is due to it's demography, therefore this rule also should work with other platforms, but it's not.

According to last year's Nielsen research X360 dominant age group are male teens 12-17 y.o. (>30% time spent playing among all age groups), in other words pretty close to what Koller said about PSP demography. And despite being heavily pirated, X360 is an impressive software seller, it's attach rate is considerably higher than PS3 attach rate (and we all know the latter platform has no piracy at all).

The problem with PSP is in something else than just demography that's "likely to pirate", X360 is doing well having the same people on board. What're those problems? I don't know. I assume overcrowded console market. Nowadays developers and customers have a wide range of platforms to choose from, like Wii, DS, X360, PS3 etc. PSP is literally like a fifth wheel, last choice of a developer to put a game on it, and last choice of a customer to buy something for it (not the case with Japan, since the most relevant consoles in there are DS and PSP). Other consoles are eating up PSP potential software sales, to be more precise, I reckon, those're X360 and PS3, since their dominant audiences intersect with PSP demography heavily. People are likely to spend their free money on X360/PS3 rather than PSP, while DS, yet another great software seller, unlike PSP, has an ability to differentiate oneself from home consoles with it's best-sellers aimed at wide range of ages and both sexes, unlike PSP once again."

as kowen said.

the psp aint bad or anything, its just in the handheld market nintendo got it right with the ds, the way its marketed is one big emample.

psp will continue to sell as ppl use it for many other things apart from games, but no one is gonna hurt nintendo in the handheld market its been going on for to long since the gameboy days.

Erm... the PSP isn't dead, thus nothing has killed. Just because it isn't selling on par with Nintendo's portables does not mean it is dead.

^- exactly, PSP has done a fine job against nintendos DS, i'd go as far as to say its the only portable device to actually really hurt nintendo because there are a bunch of PSP exclusives that could have been DS exclusive if PSP wasn't around to take them away, like Phantasy Star Portable franchise and Dissidia!