I bought the PSP near launch, and the DS. My reasons for buying the PSP could be put down to working the industry and being impressed by the sexiness of the screen. Unfortunately, when games didn’t show, the main cause of my interest on the PSP was the whole downgrading and playing movies buzz. But even that faded with time (too awkward converting movies, the patching thing by Sony puts a proper spanner in the works). So as of now, I still have my old PSP with only one game that I play, MGS Portable Ops, which isn’t bad. How long did that take! Another thing, why is it so badly ergonomically designed? My hands cramp after 20 minutes each time. As for TV out on the slim, that’s finally something worth having, but a bit late. What I don’t understand is the huge line up of additional peripherals like GPS, Camera etc. I think Sony are sometimes their own worst enemy. It’s trying to be both a dedicated games console and a pocket gadget device for everything, 007 James bond style. As you’ve mentioned, you’d need a BIG pocket and a big wallet to match. It those things are only even mildly sensible if you have a huge install base to sell to. It’s like they are sticking with their original world domination plans with no change for the reality of poor sales.

Finally, I was in Japan for three weeks recently and just looking around me on the subways and trains it seems the PSP is doing pretty well over there. It may have been because Final Fantasy had just been released but in every carriage there’d be at least two people fiddling away with a PSP. Everyone else of course was fiddling away on their phones instead. So maybe this is where Sony gets it’s current confidence from, the Japanese market. Personally I think they’d be better off going back to the drawing board and making something properly functional.