Could Sony Discontinue the PSP by the end of 2008?

I pretty much completely disagree with you. While yes, the ds has sold over 9 million systems and the psp 6 million, that's still over 6 million systems. Losing doesn't necessarily mean failing and the only aspect of the psp that can be considered a failure is the umd movies. Sony is learning from these mistakes and has announced that future bluray disks may have files to watch them on portable devices (probably hinting at the psp). As for the supposed lack of origional games, as many of them are being ported to the ps2, it doesn't hurt the psp much at all. There aren't many people nowadays going to buy the first lumines or liberty city stories. Games sell most while they're new, and as these games are far from it, Sony's making a smart decision by letting them be on the ps2 also, as it gives them a second platform for a game that won't be selling many copies anymore on the older one. Another fact is that more games rated an 8 or above have been released on the psp than the ds, even with the multiple versions of nintendogs. Even though the numbers would not suggest that it is a better system, it does have more potential and I think that over 6 million systems is pretty damn good.

and yeah i've bought 2 ds(s) (lite and regular) and 2 psps, (a second one being modded)

I think sometimes people in this forum have a real difficulty to grasp the better performance of the psp. If you buy a Nintendo DS, you get just a handheld game console with no frills whatsoever on the other hand with a psp you can listen to mp3's, view videos and browse the internet as soon as you get it out of the box. For the DS you need to pay extra for these. If you look at the specs the psp is much more powerful...ok you say it doesn't have a touch screen and dual screens, but its better to have a much higher res. screen an analog stick and more buttons in my opinion... Now for the psp games... I played very good ones on the psp, and although not all of them may be good, if you see the Nintendo DS list you'll notice that the majority are children titles, rpgs and quirky stuff. I know that ds has some good games like Zelda(soon to be out),super mario, animal crossing etc. but don't try to bring down another handheld because you didn't even give it a chance or your so narrow minded as to trash it completely...

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Originally Posted by gdf

a portable ps2 simply would not work (unless they installed a MASSIVE harddrive to store your ps2 games on).it would be huge for a start and it would be incredibly ugly as well. they'd never be able to retail at $200 and people would be just as well buying an LCD screen to put on of their ps2s instead.

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I meant using a DVD drive. I saw a while ago about some guy turning a PS2 into a handheld. And the damn thing was ugly as sin. As is this thing:

http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/23/n...playstation-2/

However, the biggest thing to make it on a Sony made PS2P would be the DVD drive. Take a PSP, place a DVD up against the back of it, with the edge of the disc flush with the bottom of the PSP. Now imagine that with some slick Sony styling, two analogs with L3 and R3 support and 4 shoulder buttons?

They could also use the same design as PS2P and make a PSP2 (Playstation Portable 2) that had a UMD drive and a hard-drive in place of the DVD drive of the PS2P.

Would be smart of Sony really; giving consumers all the features of a PS2 in handheld form.

Personally, I think the PSP will go crazy when the PS3 comes down in price and they have a few thousand PSX games to buy online.

How could they discotinue the PSP by 2008. That would mean that the PSP had a 3 year product lifecycle. I thought most consoles and handhelds stay for about 5 to 6 years.

Eh the PSP was only good for the hacks. If Sony discontinues it, at least they won't be patching up all the exploits anymore.

It's sad, but true. Normal users just don't love the PSP like the hackers do, and the hackers aren't helping much with the sales, so the PSP may infact end up dying pretty soon.

However, the PSP is by far one of my favorite systems of all time, and I hope it doesn't die anytime too soon. (However, keep in mind this quote comes from someone who only buys a system that is hackable. :D)

Well, even if sony drops support for the PSP someday this is one of the most (if not the most) impresive handheld console i have ever owned and the homebrew scene wouldn't let it die whithout fighting. anyway, i don't think the PSP will get abandoned in a near future.

Didn't the PSP sell nearly 1 million in U.S. in December? Yeah it was the holiday but that's still a fair number so I wouldn't call the PSP dead just yet.

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The consumer failed Sony because they didn't buy into the UMD as a viable movie format, and Sony failed the consumer with the Pricepoint.

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I disagree with the UMD format beign a failure as a consumer failure. Sony failed there too by trying to push YAPF (yet another proprietary format) onto us. As a game media format it suffers from long load times. As a movie format I believe it suffered due to the high price. When a UMD costs the same as a DVD what reason is there to buy a UMD when you could just buy a DVD and rip/convert it to a PSP file?


(Not that I have any idea on any alternative they could have used. Perhaps optical is the only way to go. That doesn't mean it will fly with the consumer.)