Sony To End PSP Shipment After 10 Years, Japanese PSP Owners Are Offered Discounts On Vita Purchases!

Sadly, 10 years since its first release in 2004, Sony will end PSP shipments to European countries later this year. Sony's PSP - better known as Play Station Portable - debuted in the gaming market as a competitor to other handheld gaming devices such as Nintendo DS and achieved a massive success. Prior to this announcement, Sony already ceased PSP shipments in North America since January this year, while Sony Japan ended PSP sales this month.

Sony's PSP first went on sale in December 2004. Aside from Sony itself, PSP also had game titles provided by major game developers and publishers such as Konami, Capcom, SEGA and Bandai Namco. As of 2012, Sony's PSP sales went up to 72 million units. However, as the popularity of smartphones and tablets continue to rise, Sony was reported losing US $1.3 billion in the previous fiscal year and it is uncertain if they will get back on track in terms of sales.

Economic analysts are predicting that Sony's latest release, the PSP Vita, is not getting enough sales. Sony does not combine the global unit sales of Vita along with the overall PSP tallies.

Meanwhile in Japan, Sony launched a campaign yesterday titled "Summer 2014 Super Coaxing Strategy!" wherein consumers who have their old PSP system and willing to hand them over to stores will receive a discount worth 3,000 yen (about US $30) when they buy the PSP Vita. To top it all off, PSP-2000 and PSP Go owners will also receive 1,000 yen (about US $10) discount, while students will get their discount increased into 1,000 yen more.

However, the discounted purchases campaign is still not decided for those who live overseas. Sony still has to announce if they will release the similar campaign to North America and Europe.