Why did the PSP almost die?

Recently, new games released from week to week were featured on every system except for one. Know what that one system was? The PlayStation Portable it is.Lets all face it, the PlayStation Portable has not been showing its power in the market recently. Just like what was stated before, PSP games have been nonexistent with few to no new releases debuting in the past couple months.

How did Sony end up like this? Lets take a look at the history of the hand held gaming market. In the early hand held gaming days back with the original Game Boy, Nintendo had no real competitor. No real competition had ever posed a challenge to Nintendo’s ruling on the hand held market until one day at E3 2003 when Sony announced a new hand held gaming device was to show up on the market. Sony unveiled their new device named the PlayStation Portable which was to steal buyers away from Nintendo using its higher graphics quality, larger amounts of storage, and multimedia features. Everything was looking good for Sony, and many consumers were looking to purchase a PSP.

So with all the good promised features and higher quality, why did the PSP not sell as highly as expected? No one can say that there was only one reason that hindered the PSP from selling as well as its competitor the Nintendo DS did. Yes there was that one hundred dollar price difference that definitely turned away consumers, but why wouldn’t consumers want a quality handheld with a capability to browse the web and listen to music or watch videos? The problem for Sony was that consumers already had easy portable devices that could achieve the same features, or go beyond what the PlayStation Portable was capable of. MP3 players, Laptops, and other portable multimedia devices offered the same features and the PSP was way to pricey to get the same features that consumers already had a better solution for.

Sony is a big company with trusted products, so why doesn’t its handheld device sell as much as the Nintendo DS? Sony only started in the handheld business with the PSP, while Nintendo started from the original Game Boy. Nintendo has experience in gaming devices, be it console or even handheld. Nintendo also has its own line of very famous, great selling first party franchises to support any system it creates. If consumers want to play the newest game of Mario, or run through the detailed lands catching Pokemon, they have to buy a Nintendo system.

So if your wondering why the PSP did not have a strong release list late last year and early this year, the reason being that not many people are even picking up a PSP to play or use. There is no demand for PlayStation Portable system’s as of late, and many developers choose to develop for the Nintendo DS with its higher install base, and growing hold in the market.