Is the psp dying ?

super_metroid

i just got a psp and am playing through god of war and resistance

i think it's amazing

but i notice that a lot of shops don't stock the games

is the system dying ?

ShaneU

super_metroid wrote: »

i just got a psp and am playing through god of war and resistance

i think it's amazing

but i notice that a lot of shops don't stock the games

is the system dying ?

PSP Go doesn't use UMDs so I imagine a lot of shops would stop selling them.

GothPunk

Nope, it's not dying. There are a few reasons why they don't stock that many PSP games, mostly because they don't sell very well due to the popularity of piracy on the platform (it's a fairly easy device to hack).

This time last year was when I really feared the PSP was going to die. But then here we are one year later, with the PSP Go and a ton of new games that have come out this year or are due to hit soon: Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Rock Band Unplugged, Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, LittleBigPlanet PSP, Motorstorm: Artic Edge, Gran Turismo PSP, Persona PSP, Undead Knights, Final Fantasy: Dissidia, Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, Resident Evil PSP and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. I think you'll agree a lot of those games are likely to sell quite well, if not here or in America, they'll sell very well in Japan. A dying platform wouldn't have so many big name games coming out, but whether they'll all sell well I'm not so sure. Don't forget that Sony has sold almost 60 million PSPs to date.

Maconkey

Think every PSP owner thinks that at least once... but like the last post, its still a live and kicking.

Just means picking up or browsing your local game shop isnt as much fun anymore.

Mr. K

Yeah, there are plenty of great games coming. People don't give PSP enough respect, loads of a big franchises have released (or are releasing) entries onto the PSP!

chin_grin

Yeah when you have less shelf space than the Nintendo DS you know something's wrong! :pac:

Picked up mine a few years ago and it's just collecting dust at this stage. The new games coming out are either ports or sequels. Lazy attempts to renew faith in what was a good handheld.

corcaigh07

its been dying for a long time but sony, in fairness, always keeping plugging away, they don't let a system die unnecessarily. the games mentioned are good but you get the feeling its only temporary for the release of PSP go. Hopefully developers of all kinds will fully embrace the PSP go. it would be great to see the PSP get new and original games similar to LIVE arcade as well as the full retail games.

animaX

This psp IS dying, in terms of its homebrew scene. Very stale at this stage (4 years in). Every emulator or homebrew that can be done, has been done. Maybe the pspGO will give it a boost but not much.

To be honest, I think the pspGO is a huge disappointment. Its the same machine, just a shiny new skin. Its time for the next generation of handhelds

o1s1n

animaX wrote: »

Its time for the next generation of handhelds

The DS is still going strong!

I've never really used the PSP for its intended purpose. It's all about the homebrew and emulation.

Rev. Kitchen

It is dying slowley but it is dying and it is Sony's own fault.

The community has been moving towards homebrews and emulators and instead of Sony embracing this and actually letting people put there homebrews on the PSN and both making money out of it like microsoft did. They have fought it every step of the way.

Releasing a new game that needs FW 6.0 will cut their market in half ( i would guess at least in half maybe more) because of the amount of people that have CFW. That leaves the people with CFW only 2 options, download the game illegally or dont buy it at all. Developers are hurt then the game stores are hurt the market in general is hurt.

They have eventually realised people wanted Digital downloads rather than carting around 20 UMD's with them. and as a result the PSPGO has come out.

GothPunk

Rev. Kitchen wrote: »

The community has been moving towards homebrews and emulators and instead of Sony embracing this and actually letting people put there homebrews on the PSN and both making money out of it like microsoft did. They have fought it every step of the way.

Eh, isn't that what Minis are? A lot of them are made by indie developers. Then there's No Gravity, which started out as a homebrew game for PSP and was released earlier this year on the PSN. I would have agreed with you this time last year but I think Apple have taught Sony a lesson.

Rev. Kitchen wrote: »

Releasing a new game that needs FW 6.0 will cut their market in half ( i would guess at least in half maybe more) because of the amount of people that have CFW. That leaves the people with CFW only 2 options, download the game illegally or dont buy it at all. Developers are hurt then the game stores are hurt the market in general is hurt.

I would have thought that it was the rampant piracy in the CFW scene was what was hurting developers. If you want to play the new games so bad, you could just upgrade your PSP and buy them. Why would Sony support CFW when in many cases CFW goes hand in hand with piracy?

GothPunk

chin_grin wrote: »

Yeah when you have less shelf space than the Nintendo DS you know something's wrong! :pac:

The Nintendo DS is the most successful gaming machine of all time, of course it has more shelf space then anything else.

chin_grin wrote: »

Picked up mine a few years ago and it's just collecting dust at this stage. The new games coming out are either ports or sequels. Lazy attempts to renew faith in what was a good handheld.

What are the big games for any platform over the next few months? Sequels and ports right? So it's not exclusive to the PSP. In fact with the PSP Minis that are coming out there's going to be a lot more indie developers releasing games for the PSP, hardly a lazy attempt at all. I think the PSP in a much better state as a handheld now then it was at release.

Rev. Kitchen

GothPunk wrote: »

Eh, isn't that what Minis are? A lot of them are made by indie developers. Then there's No Gravity, which started out as a homebrew game for PSP and was released earlier this year on the PSN. I would have agreed with you this time last year but I think Apple have taught Sony a lesson.

I would have thought that it was the rampant piracy in the CFW scene was what was hurting developers. If you want to play the new games so bad, you could just upgrade your PSP and buy them. Why would Sony support CFW when in many cases CFW goes hand in hand with piracy?

Which supports my point rather than fighting the CFW they should embrace it, Minis, digital downloads the PSP GO itself are all as a results of CFW. If Sony hadnt kept fighting the way the community wanted to go for so long they would have made way more money & the PSP would be better supported.

Not every one with CFW steals games. Its far more usefull than just playing pirate games. People with CFW still buy games cutting them out completely just makes no sense to me.

Its like xtravision selling you a DVD player you get home put in the region free code in, then xtravision saying oh no we wont sell you any more DVD's now, you can go to another shop.

CombatCow

chin_grin wrote: »

Yeah when you have less shelf space than the Nintendo DS you know something's wrong! :pac:

Picked up mine a few years ago and it's just collecting dust at this stage. The new games coming out are either ports or sequels. Lazy attempts to renew faith in what was a good handheld.

Yeah but have you seen the crap thats on DS :eek: .Id rather have a lot less titles that are better quality than a whole load of crap ones.


CC

Gummy Panda

Rev. Kitchen wrote: »

It is dying slowley but it is dying and it is Sony's own fault.

The community has been moving towards homebrews and emulators and instead of Sony embracing this and actually letting people put there homebrews on the PSN and both making money out of it like microsoft did. They have fought it every step of the way.

Releasing a new game that needs FW 6.0 will cut their market in half ( i would guess at least in half maybe more) because of the amount of people that have CFW. That leaves the people with CFW only 2 options, download the game illegally or dont buy it at all. Developers are hurt then the game stores are hurt the market in general is hurt.

They have eventually realised people wanted Digital downloads rather than carting around 20 UMD's with them. and as a result the PSPGO has come out.

You're thinking like a gamer and not like a business man. At the end of the day Sony is a business.

If they put emulators on their psp, they would need the backing of the publishers who would have to invest time in making a stable emulator for all titles rather ones they make for complications. Sure some of Sega ones are terrible when they let Backbone do them. There is difference in people's perception of good emulation when its free and when they have to pay for it.

Then when you get to the games it gets worse. The titles could have massive rights agreements that would still have to be honoured. Then you have ESRB looking for the games to be re-rated. You have to pay for that as well. Then we get to EU which is even worse then US for publishing the game due to legacy agreements.

There is games they can't get out on US/EU PSN due to rights agreements. The EU blog has said they're still working on getting Silent Hill back on PSN but there is rights issues effecting it.

In regards to 6.00 OFW, there could technical issues resolved in these firmware updates that some games need to function. Also the big publishers have been warning Sony over the PSP piracy for ages. At one stage US was the best selling market for PSP but the worse market for software. They found out that the attachment rate was so low due to the device being hacked.

CombatCow wrote: »

Yeah but have you seen the crap thats on DS :eek: .Id rather have a lot less titles that are better quality than a whole load of crap ones.


CC

The DS is the new NES. Great selling system with some amazing games but everyone wants a slice of the pie, so you get shít developers making shovelware.

Beat Takeshi's game anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgp1p4y367g

seclachi

The PSP is looking better than it was last year, it was sonys best performing system, but it was woefully neglected by sony while they tried to push the ps3.

Now its getting plenty of development attention and the pspgo is out its looking alot better for the console. DLC could work out well for the console, provided sony put out the right content. Im not too interested in the console myself though, its price point is all wrong, it doesnt offer much over a PSP-3000, and you loose some flexibility by not having a umd drive. The shape seems all wrong to me too, if you have gorilla hands like me you dont want to have to jam your hands into a small space, the sides of the screen are far more comfortable.

I think it has a reasonably long left in it yet, sony generally go with a 10 year plan for there consoles, so its got another 5 years in it yet I would imagine.

To the homebrew crowd posting, homebrew maybe dieing on the console, but it doesnt equate to the console itself. You cant have it both ways, the rampant piracy that is present on the PSP is killing commerical development and will lead to its premature death.