PSP second place behind iPod
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Oct 17th 2006 at 12:40PM }
Everyone wants to compete with the iPod, but only one company has been successful at getting close to the iPod's dominance as a personal media player (PMP). No, it's not Microsoft. It's Sony. People have criticized Sony for failing to capitalize on personal media like Apple has, but many forget that the PSP is not just a games machine, but a PMP as well. According to MP3newswire.net, the PSP is in second place in the competitive PMP market, selling one system per every 2.3 iPods sold. Considering how people seem to buy iPods by the dozen, we can deduce that PSP sales are quite brisk.With a beautiful, large widescreen, and the ability to do so many other things (games, internet, etc.), the PSP is easily the best PMP out there. Yes, some may argue that Memory Sticks are expensive, but with recent price drops, that argument simply doesn't hold too much weight to it.
[Via PSP World]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dolphgb @ Oct 17th 2006 12:52PM
You're not wrong about the memory...
I bought a 2Gb stick off eBay Express today for only £27 (GBP)...
Free applications like PSPVideo 9 and SUPER, and paid-for apps like PSP Media Manager make it soooo easy to transfer movies, DVDs, audio, pictures and RSS feeds to the stick from almost any source - not like the 'iTunes-only' world of Apple's little baby...
Alien @ Oct 17th 2006 1:02PM
Its good to see that the PSP is doing fine again . And its true , I bought a 2G memory for less than 60$ with taxes included :)
phlyzik @ Oct 18th 2006 5:54PM
well.... DoI! psp ownz. if all 4gb memstix were $85 (mine came in the mail yesterday, dream come true, thanks PSP fanboy!) everyone would have a psp, if only for internet alone!
Gonzo @ Oct 17th 2006 4:59PM
The psp is pretty good as an mp3 player but unfortunately it's also twice the size of an ipod.
rodan32 @ Oct 17th 2006 2:51PM
Yeah, but. . .the PSP video and music has always felt tacked on. Out of the box for the average person (the sort of person who's perfectly comfortable with an iPod) getting media on the thing is a bit of pain. I'm not talking fanboys like you and me, of course. There are other PMPs with less hassle and with much wider compatibility. Many cost more than a PSP, but many don't. Think about the Gigbeat S series, which is a great player for all sorts of media (small screen, though) or the Archos players with their large screens (higher res than the PSP in many cases). And while we're talking about storage, a 60gb Gigabeat holds many times the content of even a 4gb memory stick, and connects to a TV without any hassle at all.
So I'm not dissing the PSP. I'm just saying it's not built to be a PMP. It's built to be a games system first, and that's fine.
SuicideNinja @ Oct 17th 2006 3:15PM
It's good for portable video if you care about such things...much better than a video iPod.
It can't compete size-wise with a Nano. Carrying a PSP around for music is plain ridiculous.
Either way, the PSP and iPods are WAY overpriced for what they are.
My 2GB stick was $45 on ebay. I'll get a 4gb as soon as there is a good reason to. I'm not really sure what the reason is...I don't use it for music or movies...or anything at all really...
Player1 @ Oct 17th 2006 3:00PM
There are lots of anti-PSP arguements that don't hold weight.
h0mi @ Oct 17th 2006 3:32PM
I agree with Rodan32. The ipod plays games too (and has for several generations) but I wouldn't say it's the best selling handheld game player.
I have a treo 650 phone (which can also play games like any other PDA, heheh), and with the use of TCPMP software on the treo, I can playback most video formats on the treo. I take my divx, mp4, matrokska (sp?), mpg or other (supported format) file, _copy_it_to_my_SD_card_ and TCPMP will play back the file on my Treo. Period.
I don't need to rename it ANWM0001.AVI. I don't need to copy it to root/treo/videos/file1/directory/blah/here, and most importantly, I don't need to convert the file. As long as TCPMP supports the file format, I do not need to convert a 640x480 video to fit the screen of the Treo. All I do is copy the file to my SD card, even in the directory and I'm good. The PSP ought to work this way, ought to not require reformatting of videos (or music) and ought not require users to need a file manager to manage where music needs to be placed.
h0mi @ Oct 17th 2006 7:08PM
I agree with Rodan32. The ipod plays games too (and has for several generations) but I wouldn't say it's the best selling handheld game player.
I have a treo 650 phone (which can also play games like any other PDA, heheh), and with the use of TCPMP software on the treo, I can playback most video formats on the treo. I take my divx, mp4, matrokska (sp?), mpg or other (supported format) file, _copy_it_to_my_SD_card_ and TCPMP will play back the file on my Treo. Period.
I don't need to rename it ANWM0001.AVI. I don't need to copy it to root/treo/videos/file1/directory/blah/here, and most importantly, I don't need to convert the file. As long as TCPMP supports the file format, I do not need to convert a 640x480 video to fit the screen of the Treo. All I do is copy the file to my SD card, even in the directory and I'm good. The PSP ought to work this way, ought to not require reformatting of videos (or music) and ought not require users to need a file manager to manage where music needs to be placed.
pixelator @ Oct 17th 2006 6:40PM
Again, SuicideNinja goes blathering about how the PSP is 'way overpriced'... At $199. Yeah, you're the unbiased one, eh? How's that Sony bashing web blog of yours coming?
FYI, most PMP devices need some kind of file conversion. I just got rid of an Archos PMA400 for that very reason. Cool device, too limited in the formats it could play. Not all are thus limited, but they're still pretty common. The iPOD certainly cannot take any old edition of MPEG4, for example - to say nothing of any other format.
Where the PSP really doesn't compete with these dedicated media players (iPOD or Archos types) is with internal storage. Even with a couple of 4GB Memory Sticks, you're not even scratching the surface of a base model 30GB iPOD, let alone 80GB or higher devices. Of course, it's dirt cheap compared to an AV500. Only Sony bashers like Suicide here would attempt to use the cheaper Nano for comparison (as if the two devices are even in the same league, let alone ballpark).
bobeotm @ Oct 18th 2006 8:31AM
I bought a 2gig stick for 40 bucks, and it came with a memory stick adapter. The greatest thing about the psp's media capabilities is its ability to subscribe to rss feeds. I download video and audio podcasts on the go without a computer and be entertained for hours. Sure, internal storage would be great, but when a 2gb stick can be bought for the price of a game, I say no biggie.
I and my friends who have one, use pretty much every feature on the system, short of location free player. Its just convenient to have it all in one device, and with added storage it becomes even more of an convenience.
alienclay @ Oct 18th 2006 11:17AM
what if...
just what if,...
what if some sony high up out there caught wind of this and thought (redesign a thinner PSP and add a 20GB HD for 299-349)
firmware update a version of connect music and video that you can access from the psp web browser anywhere.
hummm (would a 20gb PSP hd dilute the $499 PS3 HD?)
Brian @ Oct 18th 2006 2:11PM
Way to take a swipe at Microsoft, even though they haven't released any players yet. (Re-re-re...)
Oh... and Microsoft is kicking Sony's butt in the Intel based OS war, too! And BMW is kicking Starbuck's butt in the automobile industry! And Playboy is totally kicking Coca-Cola's butt in the porn biz!
Useless.
pixelator @ Oct 18th 2006 6:42PM
"I can playback most video formats on the treo."
Yeah, but not at the bitrate and quality of the PSP, plus watching even regular fullscreen TV shows is a pain on that dinky display. I had a 650 for about a year and pushed it (and TCPMP) to about its limits. Good for a phone and you don't *have* to convert many files, but for full rate playback you usually do have to do some downconversion to most files unless they're preformatted at 320x240 or similar.
I do agree that it would be NICE if the PSP supported all formats without conversion, but now that it takes regular filenames for regular folders it's much improved.
Also, remember the iPOD is always tethered, and managing content on it is a pain in the ass. No WiFi and you can't delete files without going through iTunes or some other content management portal.
So again, the main advantages of the iPOD (and I have a new 80GB) are basically the internal drive, TV output and easy access to content, albeit at cost, via iTunes. Even so, sites like Guba that offer PSP *and* iPod preformatted content can help mitigate the conversion woes.
Gadget @ Oct 19th 2006 8:47PM
I use a Palm TX for video and music but not my psp. Gotta disagree about the frame rate pixelator, true a video that has to be scaled may play a bit slower, but a well encoded movie looks just fine. Granted the screen isn't as bright or as big, but I find the picture to be sharper. All that said, the biggest reason that I use my TX as a PMP is that it goes where I go where as I usually only bring my PSP if I know that I'm going to have a lot of downtime, like at an airport. Now if only i could read my eBooks on my PSP. I know I'm a geek.
Gadget @ Oct 19th 2006 8:54PM
And I missed that part in your comment when you mentioned downconversion, pixelator. But why not just rip direct from a DVD? That's what I usually do.