Plummeting PS2 and PSP sales shrunk Sony's market share in 2009

I bought a silver slim PS2 off craigslist three months ago for 40 bucks and have since kept it alive and well with the low-fi GoW collection, Greatest Hits!

As long as the PS3 isn't backwards compatible, the PS2 will never die.

The sooner the PS2 dies and gets discontinued, the sooner Sony will roll out software-based backwards compatibility for the PS3.

Final year? Oh man, sucks for those poor Brazilians who just got an official launch of the system last year! : )

which is why is said probably dude!

I know a Brazilian ps3 user so I don't know how well the PS2 is expected to do.

Stop toying with us Sony, just release a ps3 update that enables ps2 compatibility & I can finally play mgs3, sotc, & other greats!! I prefer retail versions but psn releases are acceptable.

It's not that we don't have PS3's in Brazil, they just not officially sold by Sony yet, instead they are imported. I have a ton of Brazilian friends with PS3, although in Brazil they cost about a U$1,000 and each game about U$130-140.

Yep, the PS2 is perhaps the eldest system out there, and understandable, console sales would drop, as are the diminished number of PS2 exclusives which is part of that.

The PSP side though? Simple. They need to cancel the PSP GO immediately. Stop producing a system that has next to zero use, and no incentives in actually buying it. That's what's sucking down their profits.

Hell, Nintendo may have removed the GBA slot from the DS, but people still buy up the "XLi Extreme" and "DSi Advanced" because they still play the games, and dont require additional purchases. PSP go should of just been a revamp of the PSP, not a shameless grab at money (though honestly, everything past the original fat DS is a grab at money).

No, PSP is aga8inst a bunch of fucking pirates too cheap to buy games. It has an install base of nearly 60 million, damned if you can get people outside of Japan to actually PAY for the games though.

I love my PSP Go, and hope they don't discontinue it/support for it. I think people who don't travel extensively do not properly appreciate what a wonderful upgrade it is over the PSP.

I can carry my entire game collection in my pocket. Frequently traveling to Japan (16 hr flight) and commuting around Japan (Often 1+ hours on the train) the portability of the Go is a huge seller.

Sure it isn't for everyone, but if you are actually out and about (perhaps one may even say 'on the go') it's an absolutely fantastic buy. I'm more prone to carry my PSP around nowadays than my DS, mostly because of the Go.

You are right Sheppy. It goes to show some anti-PC console fanboys that there would just be as many pirates on consoles as the PC if they were as easy to hack and exploit. They think that only PC gamers are arrogant and have a sense of "entitlement". What, the 360 and PSP pirates don't have a "sense of entitlement" like PC pirates?

The problem people have with the PSP Go isn't the form factor, it's the price, coupled with the fact that no UMD drive and a smaller screen doesn't result in better battery life, something that's never been all that great on the PSP in the first place. Carrying your entire game collection isn't a Go feature, it's shared as well. Mainly because of price, there's very little reason to want a PSP Go that's on the shelf. Once you have it there isn't too much reason to be disappointed with it unless you already had a PSP.

seriously, the psp's pirate base is fucking huge, you can go to iso sites and literally download games as they come out.

supposedly, the reason for the piracy this time is that sony doesn't support homebrew, so they need to use custom firmware for homebrew, and that prevents them from playing firmware checking UMDs.

or some shit like that.

Makes me wonder how well they would do if they made their own handheld. I doubt it would do as well though, since the 360's success has a lot to do with its online community and that's harder to do on a handheld when you won't always have a connection.

Yeah it is impressive. I guess they can no longer be considered the new boy at school. I wonder how OnLive will fair against these 3 pillars.

I wonder how much their accessory sales contribute to that ;p

A Microsoft handheld? Think Sega Nomad in terms of battery life, but on fire. ;)

They need to make Zune their handheld platform. The HD is being underutilized.

as much as I would love to see MS join the handheld dept. I don't think I could bring myself to buy one, it'd prob break after a couple weeks. Sure they have a couple years experience with the zune and maybe some phones but think about how much experience nintendo and sony have making handheld electronics.

It's the whole boatload of cash they're ripping off of consumers to pay for Xbox Live, with only nominal advantages over the PSN. It's like highway robbery at a cost of at least $40/yr.

kentuckyfried: that works out to not quite 11 cents per day. are you really that cheap? if you are going to complain about price gouging i would complain about the $10 price jump in games from last generation to this. thats a little more understandable.

Very, very impressive.

"That's because they are teh ones ripping off costumers"

Microsoft never charged $600 for their console.

"That's because they are teh ones ripping off costumers."

So by your logic if you're successfull then you're ripping off customers, the Sony's doing the same, and Nintendo's doubling ripping off their customers.........Actually you could be onto something here.

I think they got lucky, they took a risk and it payed off. i think they were about where sega was with the dreamcast. but Nintendo was lucky enough to fair well int he situation.

to reduce it to luck is pretty lame. Sega innovated with the Dreamcast when people did not need or want innovation. they wanted more of the same. Nintendo innovated with the DS and Wii at a time when some people were growing tired each generation or hardware doing nothing more than increasing graphical power and wanted a new and different experience from the video games in their home. from the looks of the graph that was about half the people.

^ Nonetheless, it was a risky move that paid off.

I wouldn't say luck however, they definitely did a lot of R&D and saw opportunity in a market not being capitalized by the big two.

nah, Nintendo was never near where SEGA was with the Dreamcast. In terms of market relevance, perhaps (as their home console brand was growing increasingly niche), but even in their darkest hour (2003 or so) they were profitable.

I'd say keep the 3000 to keep retailers happy, but chop the Go down to 199 and include a 30-40 dollar PSN voucher inside. With the profit margins on the PS Store, they should be able to take a larger hit on the hardware.

Lowering the price on the ps3 is what caused them to lose so much revenue in 2009, despite increased sales. I wouldn't expect to see Sony dropping the price on very much in the near future.

(Though, maybe the Go will come down 50 dollars at some point this year.)

The purpose of the Slim was to cut manufacturing costs, which I'd imagine will drop faster now. Once they manage to get a 45nm process out of the RSX, and get a cheaper version of the Blu-ray drive, I could easily see a 250 dollar price point for the 120GB Slim. That would almost force Microsoft to cut the Elite to 250.

1. Agree, but you have to remember that a big reason the price is so high is because... well, it's "new", and new things can be at a high price for that reason alone. Call it the "early adopter premium". Sony knows they can get away with it for awhile (like all the people who bought the original iPhone when it was expensive). They'll probably lower the price after the 1 year mark comes to a close.

2. Sony was supposed to let amazon.com start selling DD game codes as well if I remember right. Hopefully they open this up to other stores as well. That should help promote some competition and lower prices.

3. They can't phase out the PSP 3000 yet. Most publishers are kinda iffy about having games available as a download only. A lot of consumers would hate them for it. Especially those with older models who suddenly find that companies have no reason to release UMD games. They built this handheld gen around UMDs, so they can't expect them to just suddenly go away.

4. I somewhat agree. They need to implement party voice chat and cross game invites/voice chat. I don't think they are suddenly going to look horrendous when the PS2 comes to an end though. I've wanted them to just kill it off and focus on the PS3 for a long while now. I think once the PS2 is over and done with we will see even more attention given to the PS3.

Hey, we might even start to see talks of the PS4 by 2011 (assuming the PS2 is phased out by then).

Some english professor just rolled over in his grave......I meant "or".

pr did you?

Nice avatar.

Mars is amazing....Mars isss aaamazing....

They should treat it like people do a flag that's being retired and perform a ceremonial burning. For added effect they can play Taps.

I'm curious to see what happens next gen, they're gonna have to have something good up their sleeve. I can't imagine too many more casual players that haven't touched their Wiis in a year are going to fall for the same novelty again.

I argue they haven't had a great one for a while. They make money cause people (often unsupsecting non-gamer types) buy the Wii for Wii Sports. The trick is they are able to sell the Wii at a profit. I don't think they should even be grouped as a competitor to Sony or Microsoft for consoles (For handhelds, sure), they are a totally different market at this point. Kind of like how you can't compare the PSP or the DS to the iPhone for gaming, because they are totally different markets.

When is the last Wii game you've been excited for/that was actually good? Mario Galaxy is the last time I've turned my Wii on I think.