The PSP was once thought to be a system that would end Nintendo’s reign of dominance in the handheld market sector. While it has succeeded in the respect of turning the market into a two horse race, it has really lagged behind in the software sales area.  There are a ton of theories that can be used to point the finger as to why this is, from a strong homebrew scene, pirated games, to people just shying away from UMD’s it, all points to tepid games sales for Sony’s portable, causing many developers to speak out or abandon all hope in the way of support for the system out right.

While talking to GI.biz, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida addressed these issues, letting third-party developers know that they are aware of what’s going on with their machine saying, “We know there’s a lot more that we can do, and with the massive growth of the industry we understand that third party publishers have so many choices, many more than they have resources. Sometimes we struggle to convince them to put more resources into the PSP.”

Yoshida also took some time out of his reassurance sentiments to point out that the PSP isn’t in direct competition with the Nintendo DS stating: “…there’s no direct competition, although some people think that the DS is its rival simply because it’s portable, but the positioning and the main user base are totally different.”

I’m sorry that one had me scratching my head a bit.  I mean I know the PSP is more of a multimedia device than the DS, but last time I checked the main draw for either of the systems was that they were in fact game systems first and foremost.

In my opinion it’s this exact reasoning that has the PSP in the trouble that it’s in right now.  The differences between Sony’s system and the DS are clearly light and day.  So call me crazy, but maybe Sony sould look at what the other guy is doing and what has made them successful for decades in the handheld sector, or at least acknowledge there may be some overlapping in the market share, and then maybe try and give it a go from there. But that might be just me..