Why are software sales so low in the US?

[chrisrulz555]

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

[Vega]

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

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

[Larry]

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.

[shak bo]

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.

[Veskgar]

One Word ISO

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.

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

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.

[ppo]

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

[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.

[aries2k4]

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.

[kayhanbakid]

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.

great points!

[comicgeek]

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.