PSP 'doomed from the start' claims Ready at Dawn's Ru Weerasuriya

It's fair to say a lifelong userbase of more than 60 million would be cause for celebration for most platform holders.

PSP has been outsold by more than 2:1 throughout its life by Nintendo's DS, however: not the kind of sales ratio Sony would have been aiming for when PSP first appeared on the scene, all sleek and sexy, back in 2004.

If only those at the top of the Japanese giant had had the self-proclaimed foresight of God of War: Ghost of Sparta developer Ready at Dawn, with co-founder Ru Weerasuriya having gone on record this week to suggest PSP was destined to fail from day one.

Learn as you go

"It was the first portable that Sony released - it's a trial by fire," Weerasuriya told Edge, adding that even quality software – God of War no doubt included – was never going to be enough to save the platform.

"It was doomed from the very get-go. There are some things which aren't conductive to calling it a true portable gaming platform and calling it a connective platform, although it has wi-fi.

"There's so many things that publishers and the manufacturer and Sony dropped the ball on - it's natural, it's the first one."

Following up failure

Does Weerasuriya believe PSP 2 will right the PSP's supposed wrongs, then? Did the Ready at Dawn man inadvertently confirm the existence of a follow-up in the process of his damnation?

No.

"The hope that you can have is that they learn from that experience when they make the next one, and that they solve the issues with the PSP and the PSPgo - and also that they learn from what the others are doing."

Whether these fabled 'others' Weerasuriya speaks of are Nintendo or Apple is anyone's guess, but it's especially unlikely Ready at Dawn will be topping Sony's Christmas card list next month.