PSP ships 5mil in Japan, still way behind DS

both systems are awesome

Yeah, I think it's easy for people to look and compare the sales numbers and say the PSP is losing but for not dropping in price for so long I'd say it's not doing too shabby for itself. If you look at the PSP on it's own you'd see a decent selling system, but when you drop the mass market sales of the DS on top it just doesn't look quite as impressive.

Agreed! Both are great but appeal to different people.

Handhelds are just more convenient...

Plus, playing as Vile on Megaman Maverick Hunter X FTW...

Technically, you can't deny the PSP blows the DS out of the water. I just think Sony got too tied up in the UMD movie thing and less on the games. If they concentrate more on games, they could sell more systems. I don't think they will surpass DS ever. DS is easily becoming what the Gameboy was.

But isn't a problem for Sony, that I use my system more for watching and listening to Podcast then playing games?

tiny game systems for tiny people!

I also use my PSP mostly for podcasts. They are easy to download directly to the PSP and then listen to them in the car/at work. I still only own two games (Breath of Fire 3 euro import and loco roco) but the games are fun (even though I already had bof3 on psone). I just wish the screen didn't ghost as much as it does.

"But isn't a problem for Sony, that I use my system more for watching and listening to Podcast then playing games? "

Did you pay any less for your PSP because of this? No? Then no, it's not a problem for them.

PSP is a bit of a paradox. Compared to DS it appeals to the older crowd. But, these are the people who also have less time to play games and if they want to play games, they can afford a console. There is just less market for PSP.

Although the DS "only" tops the PSP threefold in hardware sales, one should also take the software sales into consideration:

DS: 61,460,250
PSP: 10,633,000

Numbers taken from VGCharts, so take them as an estimate.

Turn that crap down and take out the garbage!!!

if you only use your psp for podcasts then yes, it is a problem for sony because systems are meant to drive GAME sales, not free downloadable podcasts. it'd be like if everyone went out and bought an ipod yet nobody bought music from the itunes store.

"Did you pay any less for your PSP because of this? No? Then no, it's not a problem for them."

Uh, considering they're selling the PSP at below cost, it is a problem for them. It's also a problem for them because they get most of their money from games sales. If you're not buying games or movies, then the net financial impact is a -$50 or whatever it is. The only boon that Sony gets from people that buy consoles but never purchase software is a larger installed base to attract publishers to the platform.

This is why the "Buy an Xbox to bankrupt Microsoft!" plan was a dumb idea.

@8

Actually, I would think they would prefer he bought more games. No profit for them in him listening to podcasts.

Anyway, the PSP doesn't appear to be doing that great when compared to the DS phenomenon, but it IS doing better then pretty much any other portable that has attempted to battle against Nintendo's portables. All other attempts ended in ruin. At least the PSP has been fairly successful and will likely warrant a PSP2.

Also, sometimes I wonder how much multiple systems sales to the same people affect the DS numbers. It's obvious the DS is whipping the PSP is sales no matter how you look at it, but how many people bought the original 'phat' DS and then turned around and bought the Lite? I know I did, and so did all of my friends who owned DSs. Then how many of those people bought another one when multiple colors were release? Or how many end up buying the various themed DSs (like the FF DS) that get released in Japan?

@13

It's pretty much the opposite for my group of freinds. All of us but one (out of 5-8 people) still have phats when we get together for multiplayer, and haven't opted for lites 'cause... we're cheap I guess :)

Then again we are all mostly low income college students

More PSPs purchased = larger install base

larger install base = greater likely hood of publishers to flock to the system

greater likelyhood of publishers to flock to the system = more liscensed PSP games

more liscensed PSP games = more $ for Sony, greater support from shareholders, etc.

any way you look at it, someone owning a PSP, regardless of how many games they purchase is NEVER a bad thing

And once again, you can ship 5 million units to the stores, and only sell 1 million in the meantime. Shipped units means nothing.

"And once again, you can ship 5 million units to the stores, and only sell 1 million in the meantime. Shipped units means nothing."

And once again I'll state that if you see a PSP or a Wii or a PS3 or an Xbox360 or ANYTHING sitting on a store shelf, the company that made it has already been paid for it. So if we're going by the amount of $ that Sony is getting for each PSP, you can count the units sitting on the shelf as bought and paid for.

@16

Unless said licensed games fail to profit because they didn't get sold.

Anyway, I didn't say it was bad he bought one, but it is fair to say it's a problem if games aren't being bought. Publishers like systems to have decent game attachment ratios and profits from games sales are very important even if Sony has already been paid for licensing.

@17

Oh give it up. Shipped = sold to retailers. I seriously doubt 75% of the PSPs sold are sitting on shelves. That's simply ridiculous. Stores wouldn't stock that many to begin with... they would be sitting in Sony's warehouse UNshipped.

@Marty, I am sure that more than 1 million has bought the PSP. Stop bring a troll. And this coming from a DS owner.

If you look at the sales chart, the PSP is actually doing well. It is just that the DS is a cultural phenomenon due to the appeal to casual gamers.

Agreed, attachment rates are very important to long-term sustainable sales goals. I was merely responding to the suggestion that one person buying one PSP and not buying a game was somehow a loss for the company in general.

Vid is correct as well, retailers aren't going to buy something they're going to lose money on. They have entire divisions within thier companies and scope market awareness so you can be sure if you see an item on a store shelf that chances are it'll be sold sooner or later.

"Technically, you can't deny the PSP blows the DS out of the water."

I assume you mean hardware wise, which I would disagree with. While the PSP has some horsepower, it still only has a single screen, and it isn't even a touch screen. The UMD drive was a poor idea, and should have gone cart based. The screen is also a bit too big for portable device for my tastes. The smaller the better, for me.(I loved the GB Micro)

Sony has a ways to go, they'll have to add another screen, and make at least one of them touch if they want to catch up to Nintendo's hardware advantage.

@24

The dual screen thing isn't that big a deal IMO. The single PSP screen has more pixels than the both DS screens combined. PSP games could easily split the screen and show a map or stats on one side as many DS games do with one of the DS' screens.

I think the major difference maker is the touch screen. That really has made a major impact in portable gaming.

@13 Vidikron

In response to your question regarding multiple system sales to the same individuals. What happened to your old DS when you bought a new one? Did you sell it to gamestop, eb, or to a friend. Or did give it away to a sibling. None of those sales get reported, but it still results in another DS out in the market. So unless the majority of people who repurchase throw away the old one or put it in a closet, the sales numbers should be fairly representative of the install base.

Now repurchases for broken systems like 360s, PS2s, etc., that is a different story.

Vid is not correct. Even with the unsold units consideration there is still a massive difference between Sony's shipped numbers and actual sales numbers. This is because Sony counts a shipped PSP as a PSP that is finished being made at the factory, not purchased by retailers.

I definitely agree with the point of the article--that although the DS is beating the PSP, the PSP is still a player in the portable console business. Current predictions on the video game prediction market show the PSP will sell 34.72 million units over its lifetime: http://www.thesimexchange.com/stock.php?id=39

However, you can see from the low trading volume that gamers haven't really been interested in the PSP from a news perspective. Even the recent news of a PSP redesign have not sparked the shares.

@26

Actually, my phat is sitting in a drawer I have dedicated to portable systems, but you make a very good point. I'm sure many people did sell or give them away.

@27

You have a link proving your claim?

Yep:
2007 Total Sales

http://videogamecharts.com/page5.html

2006 Total Sales

http://videogamecharts.com/page6.html

2005 Total Sales

http://videogamecharts.com/page7.html

All added up directly from Media Create sales information. The total PSP sales number 4.33 million. There is a 700k disconnect between sales and shipped information. Since retailers are not in the business of stocking up on that much unsold merchandise (too much unsold merchanidise is bad for business) combined with the large increase in Sony's internal inventory numbers (nearly $2 billion worth), it is clear that Sony counts those unsold units sitting on Sony warehouses as shipped.

For the record, based on inventory levels, there are roughly 90,000-100,000 unsold PSP units in the United States on store shelves, not 1.4 million. The rest of the "shipped" ones are in Sony's warehouses waiting for places like Best Buy to purchase them.

I like the UMD format, it definitely bests the DS's teensy-tiny cartridges. It allows for oh so much more.

I also like the PSP, it definitely bests the DS. It has oh so much more going for it. More great games and a lot more features. It even has better battery life than my DS "phat".

Hell with the DS if you change anything in its OS you have to shut it down. LOL

Hmmm... that's still pure speculation. I don't have any hard numbers on how much stock stores carry, but it doesn't seem all that far fetched that retailers would have a that many in stock worldwide. I mean, you're claiming Sony is sitting on over 600K in stock when it's just as bad for them to have excess inventory as it is for retailers. But the stock on the retailer side would be split among hundreds of retailers worldwide, which is much more believable than 1 company (Sony) sitting on all that stock. The only time I can imagine a company sitting on that much stock is prior to a launch.

IF they do count produced as shipped, then that disconnect is likely shared between both Sony and retailers. I would imagine that Sony isn't likely sitting on more than a couple hundred thousand, but I don't know for sure.

@touchscreen being responsible for the DS' triumph.
I don't think so. I don't know, but I for one don't like the touchscreen. I remember DS and PSP being PORTABLE gaming systems and owning both I have to say, that I play my DS (if at all) more at home and my PSP on the go, since firstly: stylus input can get pretty inaccurate on the tube/ train wherever and secondly: I think you look like a complete dork/ freak/ whatever playing the DS how most its games want you to play it. I still prefer the oldfashioned d-pad+face buttons combo for my handheld gaming needs. That's why I use my PSP a lot more. Of course I am basing this on assumption but I also see a LOT more people with PSP than DS... maybe for the same reason?

Vidkron -

You'd understand why Sony is sitting on that many units if you understood the absorption costing system accountants set up. There is a funny problem with that system - the more units you produce and stuff into inventory, the higher your net income goes. By producing more units, the various fixed costs like fixed labor, depreciation and other factory overhead costs are spread out into the units produced and counted as inventory, not an expense. The expense isn't recognized until the unit is actually sold. This is a common tactic used by manufacturing firms to boost net income numbers. Sony has incentive to do this.

Sony isn't sitting on 600k stock, they're sitting on a few million. Sony claimd to have shipped 4.2 million by the end of 2005 in Japan (http://journal.pcvsconsole.com/?thread=8498 under January 2006) however they didn't reach that in actual sales until this year. A year difference in shipped vs sales is huge. The same goes for other territories.

Now, if these units are actually being sent to resellers and wholesellers (unlikely as to note the large inventory boost again) then they should start worrying about being hit up with Channel Stuffing charges. When a few million units take a year to sell, that is a charge that could very well be levelled at Sony. Last time someone pulled the stunt, Bristol Myers-Squibb, they got hit with a hefty fine and had to restate earnings (two things Sony cannot absorb at this point in time).

Shipped items are not necessarily sold, they can still be returned to the manufacturers if the retailers can't sell them. So if your system sold more, its safe to assume it has that many install base. You can't say the same for shipped systems c:

When you buy a new system like the DS(in addition to your old system: broken, given away, sold 2nd hand), it just adds up to how many consoles are sold. Your old DS won't add up to the number of DS's in the market since its already there ~_~'. Selling a console 2nd hand however takes away one potential (brandnew) console sold.

Whoever said the PSP should have been cart based is a bloomin idiot. I own both a DS and a PSP and I have no real preference, but I do like the extra ability the PSP has as a result of having a large capacity media. The difference in game music and audio quality ALONE shows the advantage of having a UMD over a cart.

wow.... Wii sold 6 million already O_o

PSP's biggest problem is attach rate. At 5M PSP sold, only 10M games have been sold. So attach rate is ~2

Whereas the DS/DS-lite have sold 15M+ but 60M+ games have been sold. The attach rate is 4. This might be higher because I think lots have bought DS Lite after buying DS-phat, making the actual attach rate / player higher.

Wow, the DSfanboys/NintendoPR are out in force.

@34

I'm sorry, but that's BS. Excess inventory is BAD. You already paid the money for the components and you already paid your labor, so I don't know how you can claim your net income increases and the expense isn't realized. Yes, your cost/unit drops with more produced, but it's still a cost. I'm not a business major, but I do know from working in a couple of different manufacturing industries that excess inventory is a bad thing.

Either way, whether Sony has a couple million in inventory is beside the point. According to your numbers there is less than 700k difference between a sold to consumers and shipped. And a large chunk of that IS going to be inventory on retail shelves. I really don't think shipped numbers are that misleading.

I have an iPod but I haven't paid for a single song on it. It's mostly for podcasts of Japanese lessons, and then .mp3's I already had, an some FREE music videos from Google Video.

The PSP is doing ok as did other system and they all died , I think the second most selling one was the Game Gear ...check it out here and I assume that the 8 million + that was sold ,was worldwide , not sure ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Game_Gear

The PSP may be a nice system, but I already own a PS2. I hardly see any games that I want on the PSP that aren't already on the PS2. Also the PS2 versions are usually cheaper, play better, and look better as well. The DS on the other hand has a good variety of games that aren't on anyplace else.

I sold my PSP on eBay last year. Yay for me!

Since moving to Japan 4 months ago i do almost ALL my gaming on the move (DS and GBA micro in my case).

THe simple fact is that japanese people work insane hours.. and also spend hours on the trains each days.. so they have little time to game at home (except the kids). Get on any carriage in Tokyo (of which there are thousands in operation at any time) and you are guaranteed to see 3 or 4 DSes and at least one PSP.

Console games are for kids.. adults game on the move. (2 days ago i saw a 60 year old woman with a PSP.. that ruled!)