Can Sony breathe fresh life into the PSP?

Waning sales of the disc-fed handheld - can Sony save it?

Sony has confirmed that it's having another go at turning around the perceptions and fortunes of its PSP handheld console. The enigma of a machine, which is still generally regarded as a disappointment in spite of some impressive sales numbers, struggled to make much of an impact where software sales were concerned in 2008 - at least, outside of Japan - and with it making up less than 4% of market share in January 2009, the early signs for this year aren't looking great either.

That said, the PSP has been written off before, and continues to endure. The main reason for this? Try the 50 million units of the machine that have been shipped worldwide. These aren't the kind of numbers that give the Nintendo DS the shakes, as the Ninty juggernaut has once more dominated the handheld arena. Crucially, it's not only outsold the PSP in terms of hardware, but it's also managed to sell a lot more games, and that's what continues to attract retailers and publishers to the DS. It's got to the point in the UK where there are that many DS games coming off the production lines, that retailers are having to be increasingly choosey about which they decide to stock.

So what's the problem with the PSP? Its Japanese performance continues to fly in the face of naysayers, and in 2008, the biggest selling game in the territory was a PSP title (Monster Hunter). It's also a smart little machine, that packs a lot of power into its small chassis.

The answer, though, has to be in the software library, where Sony has been outflanked and outthought by its main rival. Nintendo, not for the first time, developed a cheaper console, but one that crucially had touch screen functionality. It's then delivered a series of games that make use of that, often in quite innovative ways, and given the machine a real distinction and broad appeal.

Sony, meanwhile, was regarded (a little unfairly) as just going for brute force with the PSP, packing lots of power in there and then just churning out rehashes of old hits in a manner that didn't suit a handheld particularly well. And while that's quite harsh, there's some truth to it, and that's not lost on Sony.