PSP demise?

Well farbeit from me to say the PSP is sunk but I will say that there are some nervous Nellys over at Sony. The PSP was to be a flagship system whilst we wait for the illustrious PS3. It was bigger, faster, stronger, than the puny Nintendo DS, and it was going to pummel it into paste. Nintendo all the while remained completely ambivilant to the entire thing. "Oh, the PSP? What's that? It's gonne wipe the floor with the DS? That's nice." I was just standing there with my mouth agape, at the raw power that the PSP had in store. What did the DS have? Nintendogs? That sounds fucking stupid! Evidently the past 10 years have taught Nintendo something. They have lost the smug holier than thou attitude of an entertainment giant, and gotten real savvy. Nintendo used to be the ones crushing all those in their wake. I'm talking to you Sega! Now they are the ones being pushed to the brink. I seem to be one of the few people that actually give Nintendo credit for weathering the storm that is the Playstation 2. The first Playstation killed the Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn in sales. Nintendo totaly underestimated the Playstation, and it's funny because Nintendo developed the fuckin thing. The Nintendo 64 made money, don't get me wrong, but I will never say that I would rather own a 64 than an original Playstation. The Playstation had it all. It was reasonably priced. It had a great array of games. That's all you need. The Nintendo 64 had about the same games, but since it lacked the CD capacity, it just didn't cut it graphicly, even though it spanked the Playstation hardwarewise. Then at around the same time Playstation 2 and Gamecube came out. I love the Gamecube. It is every bit the equal of the Playstation 2. For whatever reason, the Gamecube got a bad rap. It didn't play DVDs, had no multiplayer, and it's disks were smaller, and had less capacity. The smaller disks had nothing to do with ability, it had everything to do with anti piracy. It was a liability, that really shouldn't have been. The gamecube sold well, but not nearly as well as the Playstation2. Nintendo was religated to a secondplace battle with that green junkpile known as the XBOX. For the record let me just say that HALO is the best game to come out on the XBOX. Let me also say that I own it on the PC and it is mediocre at best. Graphicly its pretty good, but it's repetitive, both in backdrops and gameplay itself. Multiplayer is pathetic. I liked it, but I hardly think it was worth the buzz it created. Metroid Prime for the Gamecube is to this day, probably the most enjoyable game I have ever played, other than GTA: Vice City. I can pick that game up, at any point and have a blast. The entire game, from top to bottom, is fantastic. I challenge anyone to try and not have fun playing that game. The controls are about as close to a PC based First Person Shooter that there is on a console. That brings me to the next bullshit knock on the Gamecube. It only has one analog controler. Number one, anyone that tells you that is lying. Second, most of the fucks that say that don't know the definition of the world analog anyway. The Gamecube controller is by far the best controller of all the Fifth Generation consoles. It's laid out better, and has a more intuitive control style. For sports games you don't have to worry about squares and triangles and bullshit like that. You have buttons where all the bases in baseball are. You can call blitzes in Madden while your thinking about it. If you are with a small child all you have to tell them is press the red button, or press the green button. Comfortable, functional, and durable. The Playstation controller is all of those things, but I just never could get into it. I just thought that it was a bit blocky. Kind of like a N64 controller. It worked but I just never got used to it. After the Playstation 2 came the Gameboy advance SP. Finally the Gameboys could be appreciated. A backlit screen, a rechargeable battery, and a nice compact, comfortable size. Sales , that were already good, skyrocketed. Sony took notice. Their consoles had brought Nintendo to their knees. Their Handheld would certainly deliver the knockout punch. You see, the video console business has profits in the multi billions every year. Sony wanted as much of that as possible. Nintendo was vulnerable. If it's handheld faltered, they were sunk. Enter the PSP. Nintendo had already announced its new handheld, the DS. It would have a touch screen, better graphics than an SP, and could play all the old GB Advanced games! How quaint! Then Sony announced their new Handheld. It's hardware stats blew the DS away. It could hook to the internet. It would play ENTIRE UMD movies. It would come with a browser, a voice chat function, an amazing LCD display, an MP3 player, etc. etc. etc............. The DS was toast before it ever left the blocks. I was more than disheartened. All my friends were planning on buying a PSP. A new Metal Gear game for the PSP? A new Grand Theft Auto game? My God has forsaken me..........PSP was going to be awesome, and I was going to be forced once more to admit that my chosen platform was junk. Then the PSP actually came out. What they neglected to tell anyone was that even though the PSP was pretty swank, it was also very pricey. Sony was also very picky about what they were going to let on the PSP. Homebrew shit became Sonys enemy, because as you know. If you aren't paying for it. Sonys not making any money. And on a PSP they had to make every nickle they could off of it. This was due mostly to the fact that for every PSP sold, Sony was actually losing money. This is due to them expecting to make up the difference on the other end with UMD released movies and lisencing fees for the games. Risky to say the least. Had they not learned the lesson of Sega Gamegear and Atari Lynx? When superior handhelds bit the dust due to poor planning and the desire to deliver the knockout punch with one decisive blow. While I am not really to proclaim the PSP dead, I can certainly say that the news is not good. Walmart is going to scale back its support of UMD movies. Other retailers are going to do the same. Sony itself is going to release fewer titles due to poor sales. When once they cringed at the thought of making the PSP TV compatible, now Sony is tripping over themselves promoting the same. It's too late. The PSP game market is already weak. Coupled with crappy movie sales and you have one grade A stinker on your hands. Sony has invested millions in this project and it's on the cusp of going into the tank. If I told you that I would not shit myself with joy I would be lying. The DS delivered on all its promises and more. Now the DS had voice chat incorporated into their games. The WiFi is free and stable. The games are plentiful and alot of fun. The PSP is just expensive. The end for this system cannot come fast enough for me. My only regret is that we won't have the PSP to kick around anymore.