Of course they won't drop the price below production, Sony needs the profit they're making from the PSP and PS2 to help off-set the losses they're getting from PS3 sales.

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"nor do I think that they aspire to do so"

While I agree that (a) the price drop is just a natural order of business and (b) the PSP is a wonderfully successful 2nd place to the DS, this one reads like BS to me.

Of *course* they aspired to beat the DS - and they had the media eating out of their hands in late '04 thinking the same thing! Better graphics, analog control - a true 'console in your pocket' compared to GBA++ graphics and a bunch of unproven gimmicks?!?! It was more of 'the PSP has it all over the DS, but never count Nintendo out'. Sony arrogance was on full display prior to launch - saying 'we don't consider Nintendo a real competitor, we're creating a whole new market space'.

Based on that stuff it is easy to see how a war sprung up, and the fact that for a year the PSP was neck-and-neck worldwide and far ahead in the US and for the past year has been outsold at a rate of ~5:1 worldwide, all combines for a 'PSP r teh d0med' analysis. But beyond the doom-speak is the reality that people like me who love handheld games have the absolute best position in the world - two systems duking it out for my dollars every month! Cool ...

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Why do consumers care about sony or nintendo's bottom line. If you want a handheld gaming system buy the one that has the games you wish to play. If you can afford to, buy both and you'll have a nice variety of titles to choose from. 169 dollars isn't really that much considering one game for the PS3/360 can cost 60 dollars. You really can't compare the systems. The DS dosen't have a game like syphon filter and the PSP dosen't have a touch screen or mario.

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When will people get what Sony is trying to do. Camera phone internet pda GPS= what consumers want nowadays. Everything in one little package. The DS is obviously a great gaming system, but Sony's PSP isn't just competing against the DS, it is competing against IPODs, Portable video players, and soon cameras and GPS devices. When will people realize that the DS is Goku and PSP is Gohan. PSP is easily defeated now, but it has so much more potential. I owned a DS at one point, but I got so sick of the games. Sony may have had a slump with games, but with GOW, silent hill origins, and Monster hunter 2, and rainbow 6 coming out, how can anyone still doubt the beast (referring to PSP of course).

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It's only a war when it's two comparable products. (Like 360 and PS3), but this is more like orange and apple to me.

To me, personally, DS isn't even an option. I crave better graphic games, I like racing games, sports games and action games. call me shallow, but an almost identical 1999 game with better tree animation just doesn't fly with me. I'm it's fine to alot of people, it's just not to me.

I think a lot of PSP users feel this way, that's why only 11% PSP owners also owns a DS

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I never saw anything that Sony said that specifically said "We're going to kick the DS all over the market."

What they did say was, they weren't competing directly with the DS. They didn't say the DS was 'no competition' insofar as they didn't think it would have any success. They meant that the DS was not a direct competitor and would not affect PSP sales one way or the other, and they were pretty much 100% right on. PSP sales have steadily climbed over the last two years while the DS sales have spiked, climbed, sagged, spiked again, etc. -- You see NO evidence that the huge success of the DS has hurt PSP sales whatsoever.

The idiot fanboys proclaiming 'PSP is teh d00med' are the same ones who posted links to 'flying UMD' videos, went on and on about how bad the [] button problems were and cited battery life of 2-3 hours, tops.

You can't blame SONY for the bloggers, fanboys and writers who went around crowing about how the PSP would dominate the handheld market. I admit I was one of the ones who thought the DS would flop by comparison - but it wasn't based on anything Sony said. Since when do people really base their expectations of a product's market performance on the originating company's hype, anyway?

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Sony has its flaws and critics in the PSP community.

I pull no punches, but I love my handheld. Maybe that's why. I love my PSP and I want to see Sony do right by it. Supposedly,...this is the year.

#2. Read "Death of Competition" by James Moore...and forget what you just wrote.

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