14 DAY TRIAL // The handheld gaming market is a very aggressive one, as recently a lot of platforms and devices have appeared, all promising that they will be number one. Among them, two stand out from the crowd, the Nintendo DS and Sony's PlayStation Portable, with recent sales results pointing towards the former as a clear winner.
The PSP, sadly, didn't really become very popular with the Western market, despite being a pretty big success in its local Japanese one. This is largely due to the fact that the games made for the console aren't really numerous, and that the most popular ones appeal only to people from the Land of the Rising Sun; take for example Monster Hunter, which is really popular in Japan but is pretty obscure in other territories.
This was backed up by David Reeves, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, who revealed that this was the main drawback of the handheld console. Coupled with the piracy movement, which has been pretty successful on the platform, this really drove developers away from the handheld and made other devices the target of their games.
“The PSP is as successful in numbers as PS2 – it tracks its numbers in a cumulative basis. It’s [sic] weakness, however, is its software. And that’s because developers, when it comes to placing bets, have to chose [sic] PS3 and 360, then Wii, then DS, maybe even PS2 before PSP. It’s the same at our internal studios, where the focus has been on PS3. They’ve also focused a lot on PS2 as well because we have to get the SingStars out for that format.”
Although the PSP isn't really enjoying the support of even its own producer's development teams, it is still selling relatively well. It's a real shame that a platform that is pretty powerful for its size isn't really becoming as popular as it should be. Let's hope that some developers will create games for it so that we won't see it disappear.