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First Week PSP Sales Results
Gamespot has results from the first week of PSP sales. Unit sales have already cracked 600,000, generating in the neighborhood of $US 150 million for Sony. From the article: "Sony would only say that the device sold 'over half a million units' during its first 48 hours on the market, meaning it sold only approximately 100,000 units continent-wide over the next five days--at best. Still, Sony said the tally was enough to 'further validate PSP as the most anticipated product of 2005 and an industry-altering force.'"
Also I would love to see how many of these users own a DS too.
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Sony said the tally was enough to 'further validate PSP as the most anticipated product of 2005 and an industry-altering force While many people anticipated it, I certainly whouldn't say it was the most anticipated... Did it sell better than Halo 2? hmmm.... I don't know the numbers, but I imagine quite a few more copies of halo 2 got sold than PSPs.
Your list of reasons seem to give both reasons for it selling well, and for it *not* selling well. Weird, that.
All things considered, they came into a market dominated by Nintendo and are outselling the Nintendo DS by I'd say a margin very close to 2:1. That, by any measurement, is monstrous success.
Except it's a new release, and the DS sold much better during the same period of its release. So the PSP is not a monstrous success "by any measurement."
While it's difficult to argue against the potential selling power of GTA on the PSP, remember that the PSP is less powerful than the PS2, and Rockstar's first true-3D GTA was for that system. It's almost as much up in the air as how well that will work as it is how Katamari Damacy will work on the DS. (I've got my fingers crossed on that one....) And Nintendo *does* have some interesting DS software in the works, like Nintendogs, Meteos, a new 2D Super Mario Bros., Advance Wars, and other things.
Anyway, none of this means that the PSP won't win out in the long run... but neither does it mean the DS won't. It'll be more competitive than the PS2/Gamecube fight.
How aboud a cover for the friggin screen!
The specialty stores totally sold out (EB, etc). It's the walmarts and targets that haven't. The initial wave of buyers are early adopters, and these guys usually don't buy at Walmart but rather go to specialty stores.
Apparently, the specialty stores went through 3 waves of shipments that sold out. That's very good.
As word of mouth spreads from the early adopters, the non-early adopters will start buying them from "just anyplace", and the walmarts and tagerts will sell way more units.
Sony probably made a mistake shipping too many units to the Walmarts, and not enough to the specialty stores.
Oh give me a break. I don't understand the pro-DS attitude around here. Do you think you are going to sway people to buy more DS's than PSPs by trying to justify its existence. If Nintendo did this or that, man, then the DS would rock. Please, it's only strong point is it can play SP games (which is a good and valid system). If it couldn't play SP games, then it would be near worthless with its lack of interesting titles. I have a SP, I am happy with it. I wouldn't get a DS because the touch pad just seems silly to me. Is it innovative? Sure...but just because something is innovative doesn't make it generally useful or good. It would be innovative if it shot out perfume when you passed flowers too, but who cares? The touch screen may find a couple of good titles, but will just be a novelty. There won't be touch pads on every controller from here on out...that's when you know when an innovation is good, when it becomes part of the standard. For example, the analog stick...now everyone has one on the controller. Or rumble packs to give it that little extra feel. You don't need a touch screen to make gaming good. The PSP has all that you need for a good gaming experience. An ample number of buttons, a bright crisp screen, and games that (arguably) make it worth buying.
If you want to compare two systems, compare the PSP to the GBA SP. There are plenty of advantages for Nintendo. Larger title base. Backwards compatible with older GB games. Longer battery life. Much cheaper. A sturdier unit better suited of people who drop things. But comparing the potential of the DS to the PSP is silly at best. The PSP already has better titles out than the DS...that's pretty sad. You said it yourself, the PSP will get more people developing games for their platform than Nintendo which leads to a much higher number of potential good games. I just don't see how slapping a touch screen in a system is going to give you more potential...sure, you have a chance for some different games...but not many are going to be able to take advantage of it effectively. You don't need a touch screen for good games...and from the looks of it, it is a lot easier to make flop games for it than anything else.
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