D3V said:
Yeah late at night my mind seems to work assbackwards.
I'm ready for the PSP I've red a slight bit about it, hopefully it'll live up to its expectations :-\
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Technologically, yes, it will be pretty damned cool. In terms of software and
sales, though, it's going to bomb. Here's why:
Raziel said:
I really almost kind of feel bad for Sony in this situation. They're walking into a minefield with the PSP. Nintendo has owned 100% of the portable market for how many years now? Five? Seven? Ten?
I don't think Sony understands the danger of this particular market. Handhelds are primarily dominated by a specific age demographic, those being kids age 6 to 14. Any age demographic above that doesn't hold nearly as much of the pie. Who are the people that are plunking down all the cash for those handhelds? Parents. Think about it logically: are a kid's parents going to shell out 200, perhaps 300 bucks so their kid can have another handheld? You know how parents are about these things: "Don't you already have one of those? I'm not buying you that!" That eliminates Sony's hopes of taking hold of the young gamer demographic.
What about older gamers? I'm talking about 15-25 year old nerds that carry their GBA with them wherever they go. What real motivation is there for an older nerd to pick up a PSP? Any older gamer who is interested in portable gaming already owns a Gameboy Advance, and has come to trust Nintendo as being The Bible in terms of handheld gaming. They automatically trust Nintendo, and are probably already intending to pick up a DS. So, that right there eliminates Sony's potential grasp on the older nerd demographic.
Sony's only hope of success with the PSP is to target older, casual gamers. The kinds of guys that own a PS2, a copy of GTA: Vice City and a few Madden games. Sony is banking the success of the PSP on the notion that there will be this massive influx of non-gamer college students and late-highschool kids that suddenly feel the need to play video games between classes. The PSP isn't being marketed to kids, parents shopping for Christmas presents or older nerds. It's being marketed to older "casual" gamers, and that's a really sketchy demographic to market a handheld for. I honestly can't tell you of a single college-age frat-type-guy that I know is just itching to pick up a portable gaming device.
I really think this is a bad move on Sony's part. It's certainly ballsy of them to try and wedge their way into this market, but I honestly can't see them getting anywhere with it. There's always a chance I could be horribly wrong about this, but logic dictates otherwise.
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On top of that, since Sony announced that the PSP won't be coming out this year, their only option is to wait until next year. That automatically cuts the PSPs sales drastically. Why? Because the DS
is coming out in November. The thing is finished, and it has a massive library of games to draw upon for launch, considering that it's backwards compatible with the Gameboy.
This winter, parents all over the country are going to be buying $120 to $150 DS handhelds for their kids this Christmas. Does Sony really think that those same parents are going to spend $200 to $300 on
another handheld
next winter? Hell no. Sony's only option is to release it this summer, when kids are out of school and can get jobs so they can buy the hardware themselves. If Sony waits unil next November, it will be too late. The DS will already be holding the vast majority of the market, and those buying kids will be back in school.
I'm genuinely impressed with the PSP, I truly am, but Sony will fail. Nintendo has beat out 9 competitors in the handheld market and they did it with a clunky grey brick with nauseating green graphics. They have held 100% of the market for almost a decade. Again, I truly feel sorry for Sony, because the PSP
will die.