PSP running into a brick wall

Not shy of speaking his mind, the latest outburst from games industry analyst Michael Pachter has seen him condemn PSP to a last place finish in the current handheld war.

I think Sony is running into a brick wall, trying to compete in the handheld sector,” he stated in the latest edition of Pach-Attack. With that said, I don’t think they’re giving up.

I think we’re going to have a PSP-4000, 5000 and 6000. I’m hopeful they come down in price. I’m hopeful games come down in cost for the consumer and they can be competitive.

But right now, I’d say they’re probably kind of destined to be in second place to Nintendo on the pure game front, and overall in third place with the iPod thrown in.”

Offering a little more perspective on Sony’s overall PSP strategy, Pachter added: What they did with the PSP, which I thought was brilliant at the time, was they positioned it older. They said the DS has a bunch of cartoony games – Pokemon and Yoshi – games that are skewed a little bit younger.

[So Sony said] ‘we’re going to have the PSP and we’re going to have Grand Theft Auto and we’re going to capture that older audience’. And it didn’t work.”