It looks like the next generation of video game consoles are officially starting to take over now that Sony is slowly phasing out the PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Sony announced that they are shipping the last batch of PSP consoles in June to Japanese gamers and they are also offering PSP owners a $30 to $40 credit over the summer to upgrade to the PS Vita. This is after Sony discontinued the PSP in North America back in January. You probably didn’t hear about it because Sony really didn’t make a big announcement. They just stopped sending new consoles to the stores just a few months after they started selling the PS Vita because they needed to refocus their efforts in order to boost its less than stellar opening sales numbers. Japan was really the PSP’s last big market so it’s probably time to get your goodbyes in now because the PSP is definitely heading towards an ice flow where it will drift off into gaming history.
Of course, this was a long time coming but it’s still sad to see the last generation of gaming go the way of the dodo. The PSP was a plucky little contender in the gaming market that mostly offered PlayStation 2 grade games on a portable device with some very interesting original titles like the standalone Daxter game, Half-Minute Hero and Wipeout Pulse that somehow managed to become the only title that could rival the original Wipeout on the PSOne.
The player we feel sorry for most in this passing of time’s torch is Marcus, Sony’s official corporate booster for the PSP. Sony unveiled him as their official mascot in the same vein as their CFO (chief fun officer) Kevin Butler but Marcus never really had a chance to get off the ground and become as beloved as his adult counterpart. We like to imagine that maybe he’s in business school at a college somewhere or starting out in the mailroom of the Microsoft offices just plotting his rise to the top of the corporate gaming ladder once again…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBrhwUWSyDU&w=600&h=338]
