Why are software sales so low in the US?

Via PSPfanboy

Looking at data provided by VGCharts.org reveals an unnerving trend: the distressingly low sales of PSP software. One only has to look at Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which sold 136,500 copies during its first month of sales in the US. While this certainly isn't a low amount, it nearly equals the number of copies sold in Japan ... in its first day of sales. Considering how the PSP has far more systems in distribution in America than Japan, shouldn't this game have sold better?

The PSP system sold pretty well in December, reaching approximately a million units sold. However, the amount of software sold is dwarved by the Nintendo DS. Nintendo's portable sold through more than 5 million software sales. The PSP failed to break 1 million. The five-fold difference in sales doesn't accurately represent the hardware discrepancy: the PSP isn't trailing so drastically, in terms of hardware numbers.

So, why such low PSP software sales during the holiday season? Do you blame homebrew? Or, do you blame PSP's ability to do much more than gaming: certainly, there are people that are buying the system for its other capabilities, such as its video and music playback. Did you buy a PSP game in December?

isos?? piracy??

i bought hot shots golf and wipeout

$18.99 a piece! woohoo

i would have to agree due to the amount of piracy performed on the psp by the thousands psp sales are increasing and game sales decreasing.

i guess i could say homebrew had a part to play in the low sales. becuase for example when a full working PS1 emulator was released on psp some people would rather play classic ps1 games eg:final fantasy VII. then go out and buy a new PSP game.

One Word ISO

lol

it cant ALL be blamed on piracy.... surely not. remember, fresh hardware buys over the holiday period would not be downgradable, so all new purchases cant be directly linked to homebrew.

Its a bad time of year, People have just bught PSPs for christmas for their kids or themselves... along with much more seasonal spending, people are usually broke around january.

just my opinion.

only roughly 30% of all gamers actually know about homebrew and maybe only 70%-80% of that 30% actually know and are capable of creating iso's and or ripping content from discs.

Having that said, yes piracy does somewhat have a effect on commercial gaming and hardware sales, but i disagree thats its the main problem.

bricks lol!

more than their fair share are winding up with those after the holidays. new psp owners without much knowledge installing downgraders and whatnot.

sadest post was of a kid who got a psp for xmas, immediately installed hend on 2.71, was so excitied about warez and isos, devhooked to 1.5 and proceeded to 3.03oeb update

BRICK!!

no its definitely piracy. why buy mgs when u can download it in about 3 hours and save 40 bucks??

and then have to spend another 40 on the PAL version to get the extra levels and characters???

hmm...

Still no killer app for the psp and its beginning to look like there will never be one.

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Originally Posted by jguba7892

no its definitely piracy. why buy mgs when u can download it in about 3 hours and save 40 bucks??

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Maybe to support developers? Maybe to help the PSP as a whole?

its not all about piracy, alot of it is about bad advertising. Japan has advertising all over the place for video games.
USA has advertising all over the place for alchohol, cigarettes and clothing.

I havent seen a single MGS:Portable Ops commercial on TV. not even one.
Now to piracy.
Not everyone is into hacking, usually because they are unable to it is just unavailable. But as far as the PSP goes.. all you need is the right psp and an internet connection.(PC as well but thats like duh) infact you dont even need to own the last to, just have 20mins access to them.
No need to buy a modchip or do anything drastic like that.
It's so easy a caveman can do it. no offences cavemen. i dont want you sending me a 12lbs note writen in stone.


So lets sum this up. Why is the psp and games doing so bad?
Reason 1: Bad advertising. Or lack there of.
Reason 2: Piracy, Maybe only 136,500ish copies of X game was sold. But its almost a guarantee that twice that many copies of the game were played. by downloadable formats.

and lets finish off with
Reason 3: Majority of the psp's games suck. And the few that are good, are usually available on other consoles.

Whay are software sales so low?

1. Poor ad campaign by Sony. When a new DS game comes out, you know it beacuse Nintendo has already beat you over the head with slick print/t.v. ads. What did on the fence PSP buyers get? a crusty squirrel who wants to bag Daxters imaginary cousin! wtf!!
2. Piracy, hard to measure the PSP/DS diffrence because (pirated) images of games from both consoles are available online and from fellow gamers offline who can swap at their leisure.
3 . One has to conculude that the DS and it's "console defining" games i.e. Nintendogs, Mario etc have branded the DS in a way the PSP has not. The PSP got a lot of watered down ports while DS owners got fun interactive fare at a much lower price.
4. So that I don't sound bias I have 3 PSP's and 0 DS consoles. If people really knew what the PSP could do and if Sony would start promoting this product the trend will turn. However Nintendo has ruled the handheld market(they pretty much created it)with an iorn fist. They have much more "playoff experience" if you will, so these things have to be considered when comparing software sales.

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Originally Posted by ryanMWolfe

One Word ISO

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One Word.... ROM!

To counter the piracy argument one only needs to look at the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo DS is dramatically outselling the PSP when it comes to both software & hardware.

With the Nintendo DS, one only needs to buy a slot 1 cart like the DS-Xtreme and drag-n-drop ROMS to their hearts content. There is no downgrading, no custom firmare, no flashing, no risk of bricks, etc. etc.The process of playing DS backups is easier and faster than playing PSP backups.

And for the life of me I cannot understand why Nintendo has not tried to upgrade the DS Lite's hardware/firmware to prevent homebrew/piracy.

Any DS or DS Lite can be easily used to play DS game backups. This is not the case with the PSP.

So the moral of the story? Piracy has nothing to do with poor performance of PSP software sales. The Nintendo DS Lite tries to do only 1 thing. Be a fun and innovative gaming device.

SONY with the PSP is trying to do too much with little or no planning. SONY restricts the PSP's full potential. The PSP is an incredible multimedia device but what do we use it for most? GAMING!

People buy a PSP first and foremost for handheld GAMING. That is why homebrew is so popular. It allows us to get much more gaming out of the PSP. Something SONY has not tried to hard to do.

The PSP needs exclusive, innovative games designed specifically for it. Once more games are designed that way, software sales will do better. When most games are just ports or scaled down versions of its console big brother, they don't have as wide as an appeal.

I'm sick of hearing that it is piracy and ISOs causing the demise of the PSP. You have piracy and ISOs on every platform. Its not exclusive to the PSP and causing any significant losses to SONY.

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Originally Posted by jguba7892

no its definitely piracy. why buy mgs when u can download it in about 3 hours and save 40 bucks??

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Well that's convenient. Now you have this game that takes up well over 1GIG of memory stick space so you gotta go shell out some major dough to get a 2GB or 4GB memory stick. Oh but then there is the added step of compressing the ISO. But that will surely still leave you with close to a 1GB file for a game as big as MGS: PO.

Or on the other hand, the most popular game for the DS over the holidays was maybe only a 20-40MB download and can be played without buying any expensive memory sticks. So again, shown by the success of the DS Lite and its game sales, along with Nintendo's nonexistent efforts in locking down the DS Lite, piracy is not the issue here.

I Did buy a PSP game in December. Now I have 7:cool:

If I hear 'piracy' one more time in relation to poor PSP software sales I may go postal. That's a copout answer and one really needs to dig deeper into things to see if it's even an actual issue or not.


Also you can't really compare the DS to the PSP. The DS has one major use: Games. That's what it was made for. The PSP is a multimedia device that does a lot more than games. Just because you sell 1 million PSPs doesn't mean you necessarily are going to sell a million games.

I agree with the people saying you need better games, specifically designed for the psp. I would say that´s the main reason. Alot of people use it for a portable video device also. Everyone is always screaming piracy. Sure it has it´s effect but not as catastrofic as people make it out to be.
I have seen a fair amount of advertising for the PSP console but haven´t really seen much at all on games. That could be a factor also.

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Originally Posted by Veskgar

One Word.... ROM!

To counter the piracy argument one only needs to look at the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo DS is dramatically outselling the PSP when it comes to both software & hardware.

With the Nintendo DS, one only needs to buy a slot 1 cart like the DS-Xtreme and drag-n-drop ROMS to their hearts content. There is no downgrading, no custom firmare, no flashing, no risk of bricks, etc. etc.The process of playing DS backups is easier and faster than playing PSP backups.

And for the life of me I cannot understand why Nintendo has not tried to upgrade the DS Lite's hardware/firmware to prevent homebrew/piracy.

Any DS or DS Lite can be easily used to play DS game backups. This is not the case with the PSP.

So the moral of the story? Piracy has nothing to do with poor performance of PSP software sales. The Nintendo DS Lite tries to do only 1 thing. Be a fun and innovative gaming device.

SONY with the PSP is trying to do too much with little or no planning. SONY restricts the PSP's full potential. The PSP is an incredible multimedia device but what do we use it for most? GAMING!

People buy a PSP first and foremost for handheld GAMING. That is why homebrew is so popular. It allows us to get much more gaming out of the PSP. Something SONY has not tried to hard to do.

The PSP needs exclusive, innovative games designed specifically for it. Once more games are designed that way, software sales will do better. When most games are just ports or scaled down versions of its console big brother, they don't have as wide as an appeal.

I'm sick of hearing that it is piracy and ISOs causing the demise of the PSP. You have piracy and ISOs on every platform. Its not exclusive to the PSP and causing any significant losses to SONY.


Well that's convenient. Now you have this game that takes up well over 1GIG of memory stick space so you gotta go shell out some major dough to get a 2GB or 4GB memory stick. Oh but then there is the added step of compressing the ISO. But that will surely still leave you with close to a 1GB file for a game as big as MGS: PO.

Or on the other hand, the most popular game for the DS over the holidays was maybe only a 20-40MB download and can be played without buying any expensive memory sticks. So again, shown by the success of the DS Lite and its game sales, along with Nintendo's nonexistent efforts in locking down the DS Lite, piracy is not the issue here.

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great points!

i don't believe piracy can cripple the sales of PSP or forany gaming console or handheld for that matter... Although it seems that there are alot of people using pirated software they are really just the minority in my opinion. And particularly with the PSP where it requires some amount of technical knowledge just to be able to get homebrew working. People using homebrew are not the majority of PSP owners. For me the main reason why there is less software sales is because of the price of the UMD. We can't deny that and we can't deny that the games of the DS and GBA are much more cheaper. In Japan there maybe alot of sales for the UMD but there are Japanese and they throw money away cause theyre rich.

I bought MGS:PO, Final Fantasy XII, and Rainbow 6: Vegas. I don't think piracy is the only cause.

And I'll agree with Larry. As far as commericals for video games, I haven't seen any for the PSP. I've only seen advertisements for other systems.

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Originally Posted by DKing

If I hear 'piracy' one more time in relation to poor PSP software sales I may go postal. That's a copout answer and one really needs to dig deeper into things to see if it's even an actual issue or not.


Also you can't really compare the DS to the PSP. The DS has one major use: Games. That's what it was made for. The PSP is a multimedia device that does a lot more than games. Just because you sell 1 million PSPs doesn't mean you necessarily are going to sell a million games.

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Sorry for the double post, but I'll have to agree with DKing on this one.

You seriously can't go around blaming piracy for all problems (albeit it is a major problem).

The DS is just as easy to run homebrew on as the PSP (maybe even easier, for the lack of security) and perhaps even just as easy to find DS roms. As far as cost for media storage--it's about the same, give or take about 30 USD, and while the DS isn't as powerful as the PSP, It's still kicking the PSP's a$$ in sales.

Simply pointing the finger at piracy for $ony's problems is nothing more than what DKing has nicely pointed to--a cop out.

I've seen a few PSP game commercials... most notably LocoRoco and KillZone Liberation. Im in UK though so could be very different to US advertising

Homebrew might be losing some of the sales but not 4 million... i mean really.... no only are most psps sold now not downgrade able, but most people dont even know about any of these downgraders or homebrew or 1.5 fw or any of this stuff so they just go with the flow and upgrade into secure fw like 3.03.
I think its just that there is so much more stuff for people to do then just play games. I bet if you looked at how much money sony made from these jacked up memory cards they would definitly be caught up with nintindo.

Edit:I scrolled up and read Dking's comment and I totally agree with it.

It's ridiculously easy to pirate PSP games, no modchip needed. And since the game prices are so high, it's gonna happen more. But it's not only that, it's also bad advertising.

im not buying alot of games not because of piracy, just takes me so long to beat one game and theres doom in homebrew :)

lol come to think of it the last time i bought a psp game was way back in may06, i use its other capabilities anyways

My 2 pennies.

I believe a lot of why software sales for the psp are low is due to to their piss-poor marketing overall. We've all seen the website, i wont mention it again. Anyone who thinks piracy is factor is giving people too much credit. people arent that smart. yes, you and i know how to go and figure out how to download a game, but the average joe's i know with psp's (everyone but me that owns one) doesnt know a thing on how to get games on their psp. If i come over showing off the latest build of Daedalus or CPS2 they pee a little. But whenever I look at their game collections, it's usually brands that are well known (sims, gta, midnight club) only because they happened to see the things in the store and were familiar with it. Something else that was almost apparent overall is that they were all disappointed that the experience wasn't very distinguished from the console experiences that inspired them. There are great games for the psp, but the most memorable thing about those psp commercials for me are the squirrels. Seriously, i can hardly tell if they even mention the gameplay on the tv behind them. I think a lot of people are walking away with the image of the squirrels instead of what they're intended to promote. Since sony is seemingly beginning to move away from the UMD format by offering movies for Mem sticks, i think they should shift focus to gameplay instead of being a multimedia device. I mean hell, their focus should always be on what is going on with their games division no matter what, all that other stuff is secondary.

the games have gotten cheaper still hasent helped sells gta vc is only 29.99 and the warriors is listed at 19.99. no i havent bought any psp games all year. i play mostly ps1 games on my psp right now and there free i just convert the 100s of ps1 games i own

Without getting into a way to deep of a debate, some of the reasons PSP is doing bad...
I can start with the age we live in, where quality no longer matter, but quantity. The flea marketization of the world well USA!!! buy, buy, buy... stfu, stfu....
And of course the main reason, shiitty games.
PSP Has a very small number of games that are actually good. They need to stop fkin with the firmware and concentrate on RPG's more and games that are actually confortable on the machine. Look at some of the SNES and PSX classics. I cant stop playing if I make the mistake of popping in a classic.

And I'm sorry, but loose the shooters(as a general type of games), playing a shooter on the PSP is like masturbating with a pair of long nose pliers, it hurts, it sucks and feels retarded.
Anything available for another console will be considered underpowered on the PSP therfore people will prefer the home console version. We need exclusieve games. And not games developed over night. Regugitated... Ah, and the games based on movies, loose those 2, wow! very exclusive to play a game of a movie you just saw, or vice versa.

We need dungeons, castles, swords, mystery, adventure, stratey etc.

I don't even want to hear anything about PIRACY.
It's far from being the reason.

But thank the people for the homebrew ps1 etc, it saved the PSP.

Wonderful pice of hardware, but unfortunatelly we're not ready for it.

In my opinion, one major reason why DS games are selling way better than PSP games is because of the amount of diversity in DS games compared to the PSP. I have yet to play a unique game on the PSP other than maybe loco roco, the DS on the other hand has such a varied library of games (as well as the usual suspects), its unbelievable.

How many PSP titles can you think of that actualy bring a new concept to gaming ? not that many i would guess. However, there are many many original titles on the DS with its touchscreen and mic input put to good use.

This, amongst other reasons that people have mentioned, all adds up to less software sales for sony.

Garr! Jack Sparrow and his cursed crew be the reason for low sales.

Many a newbie hast written complaints about noUMD mode's compatibility being poor as they own not a single UMD!

;)

Like everybody shouts.....HOMEBREW!!!!!!!!!

I do not have a clue about the Wal-Market®™ Fair you Guy's have over in the US.
But I can give you a very simple and explicit answer as to why I'm not buying any PSP™ Titles.

The answer to which is simply nothing currently available on the 'High Street' is remotely interesting there are on average about ~maybe~ Twenty Titles ranging from the Sports (Football and the Crap that you Americans would pass off as Football: Read Maiden™), and the Grand theft line of tiresome Games.

Sadly I haven't had as much fun with my PSP™, as I've had by updating from v1.50 to v3.03-OE A w/PSX Emulation!

Why 'cause now for what to me seems like the first time!
I can now play some fairly decent J-RPG's on my PSP™, something up to now that S0NY Computer Entertainment Europe®™ has for reasons unbeknownst to me refuses to get such Titles into said 'High Street' Locations.

It's a damned shame really.
If I didn't know it any better I'd say that the PSP™ UMD Game Market is 'bout to head off in the same direction as it's Movie-Line Brother!

Why am I disinterested in the PSP™?!
Cause it [the PSP™], has disinteresting Games!

I don't think S0NY®™ even cares about the PSP™, such as it is, and is more worried about how to market a PSP²®™, on us!!

People easily forget that Not everyone is into homebrew. The piracy arguement is always going to be weak.
For example, I've 3 friends who all have PSPs... And I was the one who downgraded all of them and introduced them to homebrew. They would not of had a clue about it, and if they did, they were either too scared of bricking their PSPs, or they were happpy enough to use UMDs. 2 of those friends now still buy UMDs, the other is happy as hell that he can play GBA and SNES on his PSP.
The point im trying to make is, WE all know how easy is it to enable PSP for homebrew, THEY know that it is possible to enable homebrew, however THEY still might not want to do it, out of fear of wrecking the system they paid £200 for, or simply because they are content on what they have.

On a play of that old '90's addage:

...It's the Games Stupid!!!

psp sales are increasing and game sales decreasing.

The only thing that explains it is piracy. Ppl are buying PSPs with no intention to buy games.

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Originally Posted by Kyo_

psp sales are increasing and game sales decreasing.

The only thing that explains it is piracy. Ppl are buying PSPs with no intention to buy games.

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but all new PSP hadware isn't downgradable.

The reason I don't buy games much is because I can't test them out before hand, at my leisure, if there were any PSP demo discs easily available, I'd test games that way then buy them.

As it is I think I have one of the only ones available (from Playstation Magazine...) - I had to use DevHook to get it to work though, as I refused to update my PSP just to look at Demos...

Yes, I know I can Dload them, if I want, but then what's the point of buying them? (except to reward the developers). Actually I'd quite like to see some professional download only games...

Say EA put out a cut-down (read demo) version of Need for Speed, and to upgrade you need to buy a code - that's how the games market on Palms works.

You could also do games downloadable directly to the PSP, if you did things right...

Are you kidding me??? The games on the PSP SUCK!!! I havn't had one that lasted 4-5 hours that kept my interest. It's limited with short comings. Loading takes forever. I bought a total of 10 games that had to be resold on ebay because they suck. Dynasty warriros. That is when I realize how limited the psp really is. If you have to stop and play it like empires. After that the only use for it is listening to mp3's and watching videos. It's also on other fourms that they really need devolpers to make a smash hit. Because I don't want to fork up another $40.00 bucks for junk. When there is xbox360 titles & nintendo wii.... The fun factor in a psp isnt there yet. Hoping one day it'll come. :( When I first bought my psp it was because the ps1, ps2 are great consoles with fun games one after another. I was hoping the psp was going to be the same. But after buying one game and being very disappointed with. I tried to convice myself that it was only one game and the next one would be better. It just got worse and worse. Honestly I wouldn't of bought a psp if I knew ahead of time that the games were going to be that bad. Check out gamespots reviews Most of them are rated 6 and under. Anything above that you can tell what games stand out. But even than they'll be left on a counter collecting dust....

i have to say the reason psp games sales arent very good is the games ......easy.

i'll tell you which games i've played on the psp that i liked playing the psp.

loco roco
ridge racer
exit
mgs po
ssx

the reason these games work is because they fit well with the control scheme of the psp. the first person shooters DO NOT belong on the psp. it doesnt have the right control scheme.

theres a prime example of whats wrong with the psp. it can be summed up by looking at one game..sonic rivals.
i was expecting a normal side scrolling sonic game . it BELONGS on the psp, but no, it has to be some racing game.

i think the psp may be a victim of its own power. its powerful enough that developers want to port console titles over rather then making games that feel natural on the system.
consequently games smulators feel much more natural on the psp than any other game.

i have to say also...exit is a damn fine game and metal gear p o shows that the psp can do great stuff....however i have yet to see sony's in house games studio make anything even remotely as good as that ....soemthign that they are good at doing on the ps2 .

however... i should also say... nintendo in house studio draws a lot of attention...people have upgraded thier game boys where as the psp is the new (albiet more mature ) kid on the block. if i was sony i would SERIOUSLY consider releasing SIMPLE games...SIDE SCROLLERS... make em cheap but fun .... we dont need more fiddly fps shooters like socom ...they just look a bit crappy compared to new super mario bros.