It’s no secret that Sony’s PSP isn’t quite the hit the company had wanted it to be. Now, you can blame the unqualified success of Nintendo DS as why the PSP hasn’t taken off, or, like the director for WipEout Pulse, you can blame lazy developers. Pulse recently called upon PSP developers to do more with the system—it can play MP3s right out of the box, so why games allow you to use them as part of their soundtrack? (That’s what made Project Gotham Racing infinitely more enjoyable.)
Or it could be that the PSP is too beautiful for this world.
Pulse offered another reason why the PSP walks with a limp: it’s too good to be a portable system. The system offers so much—video playback, Wi-Fi Internet browsing, UMD, etc.—that people don’t necessarily view it as a “portable” system. The DS and its GBA predecessor? No one would confuse either of those for a home console. In other word, the market is confused. Silly market.
To sum up, it’s the games [stupid] and how you tap the power of the PSP. Do so in a manner that the DS could never replicate, and the PSP will find its second wind.
WipEout Pulse interview [ComputerAndVidoesGames.com via Next Gen]
Actually, it does have untapped power.
So far nothing (official) as far as I know use some of it’s ports, such as the IR port (comon Sony, putting a universal remote app on it would be a no-brainer) not to mention that the PSP uses a 333mhz CPU but its downclocked to 222MHZ. Custom/hacked firmware has been able to run it at 333mhz mode for a long time now, reducing lag and load times, and just now Sony is finally deciding to do this too with a future firmware update that will allow games to run in 333mhz mode.
The amount of people using a PSP with custom firmware is staggering, more people are interested in what it can do (with homebrew and hacked firmware) than it’s games.
So yes, I will have to agree it does have untapped power.
If it’s a failure then it doesn’t bode well for the current crop of consoles. The PSP has sold more than the Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3 COMBINED.
Being #2 in the handheld market, behind an inexpensively priced children’s toy (the DS) is not a bad thing.
(p.s. Wipeout Pure is still a beautiful game, I look forward to Pulse.)
Yes, of course it’s #2 in the handheld market…there’s no #3.
still though people need to grow up from pokemon, super mario, etc. the ds is a childs play thing and cheap. the only reason you might not want a psp is because your a lazy piece of crap and you dont know how to work it. while on the ds you can only play games and buy a seperate wi-fi connection.