PSP hardware shipments plummet, software up slightly

I'd like to buy a PSP, anytime I go into an electronic store and see one, I always think about buying one, but it's just the price that is keeping me away. It's not like I can't afford one, and I do want one, well, just to have one, but that price is keeping the PSP from being an impulse buy for me. I'd like to play a GTA portable, but not for $250.

Lower it to $150 and get rid of the different SKU's then I'll buy one . I have a feeling a lot of people are like this too.

"Nintendo has had a head start in the hand held race. Eventually, they were able to find their niche with the DS Lite. But they still had their share of handhelds to go through before finally owning."

Uh .. Nintendo has owned the handheld market for a long, long time. Like, since the days of the original Gameboy. Actually, even before that, they had the Game & Watch series (which wasn't nearly as successful). Gameboy came out in 1989. So yeah, Nintendo has owned the market for almost twenty years.

StMadnes, you had a pretty nice post... until that "fanboy" line at the end. -_-

Also, Nintendo has always owned the handheld market. Not one single competitor (Game Gear, Lynx, Turbo-Express, NeoGeo Pocket, N-Gage, etc.) could topple Nintendo's line of handhelds. It's just that the PSP has taken the biggest chunk out of the marketshare from Nintendo.

I don't really see this as a death of PSP in general. Truth be told, I think it's unfortunate. After all, Sony was one hell of a force and actually kept Nintendo on their handheld toes. PSP also had one of the best launches in gaming history so it's hard for me to see where all this PSP hate stems from.

Sony, for the most part, is responsible for some of this. They swore they would limit the ports and yet third parties just went willy nilly with their drops, often offering zero discount for for the ports. Some companies did okay in this regard (like Ridge Racer and Burnout Legends were both worth the asking price) but others did straight ports.

Likewise, third parties just refused to bring their A game. EA was the most hilarious for me because, when they weren't shipping glitch loaded ports (Madden anyone?), they were shipping halfassed game concepts (LOTR Tactics anyone?) and when this crap just didn't peddle in the numbers they wanted, they were all over bashing Sony because of it. Personally, I feel if a company can manage to move 300,000+ copies of a broken madden for a portable at the same price as the Xbox and PS2 version, they have no right to bitch but I digress.

Other companies brought a hefty amount of support but just couldn't see the return on that support. PSP, right now, seems to be the best concole catering to ultra niche JRPGs thanks largely to NIS America, Atlus USA, and even Mastiff. I mean, as if getting the great traditional RPG Legend Of Heroes III recently was not enough, Gurumin, Monster Kingdom. Valhalla Nights, and possibly even Jeanne D'Arc. So in this regard, PSP definately serves a function for the hardcore RPG players. Defnately more so than the Nintendo DS since most RPGs on that console are either few and far between, or complete and utter crap. But that's just my opinion.

And while people love to complain about the lack of original content on the PSP, all they have to do is go to a store. PSP has a ton of original content but people love to focus on the ports. And hell, some of the ports are phenominal like Megaman X and Megaman Powered Up.

The UMD as a media format was a big mistake. But I was amused how many people were using the "more movies than games" excuse to hate. A game takes months and months of development time. A movie takes 16 hours to format to the PSP and add in some menus and compression (A friend of mine did some menu designs for a couple UMDs and he's where I got this figure). And the companies were dumping everything they had, expecting consumers to buy more movies than games on a game console for less special features and more money, no less. UMD may have survived if Disney didn't say "Okay, we want $35 for Pirates Of The Carribean on PSP" and started around $10.

In the end, I like my PSP (both of them... one for homebrew, one for legit games) just as I like my Nintendo DS. However, without PSP pushing Nintendo, they have already regressed into their previous state of "half efforts" and I'm saddened to see Nintendo slipping precariously back into old habits. But that's what happens when people scream "There can be only one!" Well, guess what, now there is only one market leader by a huge margin. I already see DS's golden period shriveling under the brightness of their own sales as they march forward uncontested, again. Having PSP there, nipping on their toes with every step, was what lead Nintendo to abandon their previous handheld strategy of Pokemon Dash, Super Mario Port 28, and Warioware Touched and start trying more. With PSP rapidly losing ground, I can't say we won't see that period repeat itself.

LOL...good one Lou! Making a xbox man laugh! (even though I will eventually get something from all systems)

PSP only sold because of the playstation name. PSP has not sold 22 million units. It has shipped that many.

Christmass was a huge time for the psp however the rest of the year it sells like garbage both in NA, Europe and Japan.

Japan it outsells the psp by a factor of nine to one.PSP sales in Japan and NA fall on a week by week basis one month after Christmass. Next year it will just sell a few thousand a week in Japan.

The psp is heavily discounted over there and is often bundled with several games. Heck sales often put the psp price just a few dollars over the ds lite.

Used ds lites go for a lot in Japan. If nintendo could push a million DS units a week in Japan they would sell that figure for months.

PSP game sales are in the toilet only reason it rose is because the Christmass owners went out to buy a game or two.

I wonder when it will be mentioned that the PS3 sales numbers are dropping in Japan and NA on a week by week basis.

The wii outsells the PS3 by a four to one margin and is heavily supply constrained. Once again if Nintendo could put out a million units a week in Japan they would sell out those wiis and continue to repeat that success for months.

"one minute, when ms shipped blahblah and sony shipped blahblah during the last quarter of 06 released by npd, meant rubbish.

now, the sony ship blah, it becomes gospel.

Brilliant mob mentality! :D"

Huh? These are Sony's own figures, right? That's what it seems like to me from reading the article - critiquing NPD's measurement techniques is one thing - NPD just makes a estimated guess based on SOME stores' sales figures - but I assume that Sony knows FOR SURE how many they shipped.

"UMD may have survived if Disney didn't say "Okay, we want $35 for Pirates Of The Carribean on PSP" and started around $10."

You can't blame this completely on Disney - I'm sure Sony got a licensing fee for their use of the UMD format/logo/etc. Also, I'm sure UMDs are way more expensive to manufacture than a DVD (since DVD is a mature technology), and does anyone but Sony do it (you can get DVDs pressed at 100s or 1000s of factories)?

Josh I can blame that completely on Disney. And do you know WHY? Because when Sony and other studios were dropping UMD movies for $15, Disney dropped their frist three and all three of those bastards were at $35. Pirates, Kill Bill, and some other worthless flick. As time passed, most studios kept a constant trend of either being $5 more, or $5 cheaper than the DVD releases. Eventually, Disney followed this trend but for three solid months, Disney releases on UMD were tragically overpriced. (As I said before, I used to work retail and the Dsiney Rep kept complaining about UMD sales of Disney compared to Sony or Fox and she always hated it when I showed her the price tages she put on the stupid this).