Anyone remember the Sega Game Gear? I do. “Sherman: set the ‘way back machine’ to the year 1990”. Back in 1990 Sega decided to enter the hand held video game market in an attempt to dethrone (or at least derail) the juggernaut that was Nintendo. Released in North America in 1991, it was a not so compact (but small enough) unit that retailed for around $149 in the states.

The Game Gear had everything going for it: the screen was larger than the Nintendo Gameboy, and in color, the sound was better and, at launch, while there were a limited number of games available, they were diverse. The Game Gear should have taken the hand-held market by storm…it didn’t. 

Why? Two reasons: 1) by that time, the Gameboy (which sold for about 50 bucks) had amassed a very large number of loyal fans and, 2) the Game Gear wasn’t truly portable (you couldn’t stick the darn thing in your pocket). Sega was also unwilling to sink any new R&D into the unit to improve it. After 5 years, Sega finally gave in and abandoned the Game Gear.

Now let’s fast forward to the year 2003. Sony announces at E3 the development of the PlayStation Portable. Using its usual marketing strategy of super hyperbole (i.e. foot in mouth disease) and pricing strategy (i.e. the Daddy Warbucks approach); Sony proclaims that it is going to free the handheld gaming market from the ‘ghetto of video gaming’ for the minimum price of $250 US! Sound familiar? (Cough…PS3… cough).

In one master stroke of marketing clumsiness, Sony managed to simultaneously insult millions of handheld gamers and isolate the rest by pricing the PSP out of the current market. Since that ignominious launch the plucky little PSP has had an uphill battle to gain respect.

 Considering what the PSP was offering, it is understandable that Sony was a little proud of its new baby. It had better graphics than any other hand held since the Sega Game Gear, it was like having a PS2 in your pocket and it was compact enough to carry around. If Sony would have let the PSP just stand on it’s obviously superior features it would have faired much better. The pricing was another matter altogether. To understand why it was so expensive, you have to understand the market from which it sprang and was designed for.

Despite it’s glitzy, neon façade, Japan is a closed economic system. Money is tight and if you can combine two or more functions into a device it is a tremendous selling point. The PSP was not only a gaming system but also a movie player, a MP3 player, a photo file displayer, and a web browser built into one. Of course it seemed a bargain for a paltry $250 US. Maybe in Japan, but in the states it was seen as a little pricy for a portable game. Because that’s really all the PSP was to the average American gamer. 

In the gadget rich US there are separate devices in each household to do those other things. I doubt if most Americans even know (or care) that their X-boxes (with an inexpensive add-on kit) and 360’s can play DVD’s. (I’d forgotten that until my DVD broke down one day). To be practical all the average gamer (or parent who was out getting something ‘video gamey’for their offspring) was concerned about at Christmas time was that the PSP would cost almost $400 (after a couple of games, a movie and taxes) and the Nintendo DS was only $150. Guess which one got chosen.