Goodbye PSP (?)

I bought a PSP 3 months ago and after 1 month of playing, it broke for no reason. I didnt bother to return to manufactory for warranty. Here is an article on Yahoo about the end of PSP:

Goodbye, Sony PSP
We barely knew ye
By Mike Smith


Whatever happened to the PSP? The device that Sony once touted as "the Walkman for the 21st century" is fast disappearing from popular consciousness, and if you believe the rumors circulating just three-end-a-half years after its launch, it's up for a major rethink in 2009. Over the crucial month of November, the Nintendo DS shifted a jaw-dropping 1.5 million units in the US alone (up 20% from last year) while the PSP languished, managing just 421,000 sales -- actually down 27%, in what was in general a tremendously strong month for video games.Even the software support is eroding. Despite the PSP's healthy install base of around 13 million consumers, only six 2008 PSP releases scored better than 80% on review aggregating site gamerankings.com, compared with 16 on the DS. There's a good reason for that: nobody's making PSP games, because outside of one or two hits like this year's Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, nobody's buying them. That's only going to worsen when the superheavyweight Grand Theft Auto series (previously exclusive to the PSP on handhelds) releases its first DS title early next year.In a lot of ways, it's a shame. The PSP is a far more capable hardware platform than the DS. It's a phone, a portable music player, a pocket-sized movie device, a mobile web browser, and when paired with a Playstation 3, a remarkably capable remote control for the system, capable of streaming music and movies from a PS3 over the Internet to wherever you happen to be.

Next to it, the DS looks like a product of another age. It's barely capable of 3D, let alone delivering a suite of mobile applications of the PSP's caliber. Not, in fact, unlike the contrast between the Playstation 3 (modern, immensely powerful, and pricey) and the Wii (underpowered, basic, and cheap.) Oh, and phenomenally successful. The parallels you can draw between Sony and Nintendo's offerings go deep. But then, set the PSP next to the iPhone or iPod Touch, the year's other big winner in portable gaming, and the PSP's hardware design suddenly looks old hat. Where's the touchscreen? What are all these buttons for? What on earth is the point of this useless analog nub of a joystick? And why, in an age when flash memory is so cheap it practically comes in Cheerios boxes, are we still stuck with a huge, bulky, slow, and noisy optical drive? If you're going to compete by offering a powerful hardware platform, you actually need to outperform
the competition. As the iPhone steps into the portable gaming ring, it's already got the PSP on the ropes.Guess what, Sony: Apple already made the Walkman of the 21st century, and you missed the boat.

ROFLMAO!!!!

Sony has really fallen since last gen. From the top of the charts to a third rate bananna buried in a pile of dung. Man, how times change.

My brother bought the PSP a few months ago, and FF VII CC is just the most awesome FF i have ever played, period.

But i can understand that no one is making games for it, when you can easily download them from Ares and such >_>

Oh and here in Argentina, the phone seller companies had to put the iPhone on sale for less than half it's price (it was originally close to $3000 and they put them for sale for $999), cos the Nokia N95 was kicking it's ass badly.

And sadly, the PS3 is failing really hard against the Wii, simply because the games are a lot cheaper for now.

Lol this reminds me of my old iPod.

I got it about three years ago back in 6th grade. Its a Black 1st gen 2 gig nano. I was really happy with it and then suddenly a year later it started breaking down. It shut off and i could not turn it back on even if i had it pluged in, then 6 months later i got it back on! But it was trashed, It had about 4 hour battery at the max and declining, it used just as much power when it was OFF as when it was ON. So i would listed to it on the bus ride to school and it would die on the bus ride home. And then the screen died, and so it was all glitched and i could only see one-fourth of the screen (the bottom left part) and so i could never tell the battery power or the time or anything. but i learned to use it and i did till this christmas. And by that time it had a five minute battery so i couldnt take it anywhere.

But now i got a new iPod ^^ and my old one is in a protective case where ill keep it forever

The Wii has consistantly sold more than the 360 and PS3 combined times two or three. The PS2 is one of the best selling systems in the world, and Sony made a fortune off of it. The kicker is, they have lost the entirty of the PS2 profits and then some on the PS3 and PSP. With the 360 getting nearly the same games as the PS3, including Final Fantasy 13, and being twice the price as the other systems, Sony has got to gain some major ground, or this venture may make them to a Sega.

Chief BOO wrote:

.... cos the Nokia N95 was kicking it's ass badly.....

I want the N95 with 8 gig, its $450 here. Justin has both N95 8 gig and N96 and he told me that N95 8gig is better. Those pics of Phie, Eva and Owen were taken by the Nokia N96.

About PS3, I think Sony stubbornly keep the price of the console way too high. Of course the games too, it doesnt have that much games either.

No, Sony isn't keeping the prices high on purpose, they have almost no choice at this point. They're already losing money per system built, and Blu-Ray isn't taking off like they thought it would. As far as technology is concerned, it's easily the most powerful and advanced of all three major systems, but this results is higher costs. With the Wii having an entire market all to themselves, and the 360 offering nearly the same content as the PS3, people are making the smart choice and buying the cheaper system. Maybe Sony will surprise us by a price drop in 09, but we expected one in 08 and didn't get it. They're investing all this money in Home, but as far as I've seen and heard, it's little more than a place to cyber. It offers nothing that their particular market wants.

Losing the exclusive Final Fantasy 13 is going to be a major blow for Sony, and even with Versus 13 still exclusive at this time, it's gonna hurt HARD. Little Big Planet is a fun and enjoyable game, but the casual market they created it for won't spend $500+ dollars for one game, no matter how good it is.

What Sony needs to do is drop Home and get developers working on some massive exclusives that show what a Blu-Ray can do, and I'm not talking about 4 hours of cinema scenes. It may seem silly, but they need to bring back or create a figure-head mascot that people will know and reginize. Mario, Link, Samus, Master Chief, Sonic, these names are what drive this industry. Mario, Link and Samus are pretty much self explanitory. Chief stared in one of the most epic trilogies in game history. Sonic has legend status from back in the day, and people still grasp at any Sonic game released, hoping for something special.

Sony has...... Nothing. Seriously, there is no name or series tied to the Playstation that makes people drool when they hear it. The closest they really have is Cloud, Sephiroth and Kos-Mos. Cloud and Sephiroth, okay, I'll give them that, but Terra and Kefka are just as famous and popular as the two boys, splitting the fans between the older and newer gens. Kos-Mos is liked mainly for the sheer awsomeness that stems from her character, rather than her games.

I've always wanted a PSP, but was too poor to get one. I still kinda do want one for the portable media player aspect. Plus, you can firmware your PSP and make it emulate games and such.

At least they aren't like Microsoft where are their products crash simultaneously at midnight.

The PS3 is not of this century. It was way too advanced for the times we are in now. If they'd have waited a bit longer to release the PS3 when other technology caught up to it, they'd be more successful. Then again, they had to put something out in the market to not lose against Nintendo and Microsoft.