PSP 15 Months Later

The PSP was released March of last year and it has been a great ride so far. When my buddy Tommy and I saw the PSP at E3 2004, we were quite shocked. Is it really gonna be that cool? Sony's booth had a nice corner devoted to the system. PSPs filled the walls, but the only thing playable was a 16bit looking RPG. All they could really show off is the screen quality and give us a sneak peak of whats to come. It was a very thin, shiny, and sexy machine. Even then, we knew the system had awesome potential.
So, Tommy and I were both at Walmart for the 12am for the launch of PSP. I guessed that there was gonna be crazy demand and there would be lines....Nope. We got there at 1150am and there were 2 other people waiting. Turns out Walmart received almost 100 of them. Nice. That's one of the cool things about PSPs. Everybody has them in stock. Always have.
PSP has been getting some bad press because the majority of titles are PS2 ports. There are only a handful of original titles for it. Most of them are very good. Also, UMD videos are abundant. You can find most anything to take on the go.
So why is PSP falling behind Nintendo's technicaly inferior handheld DS? To start, the price. PSP launched at $249 and came with a 32 meg memory card, headphones, pouch, wrist strap, and demo disc. Not a bad price for what it is, but almost double the DS. Now you can get a PSP new for $200 with a few less goodies.
Second, lack of original titles. Sony has always been a company to rely on 3rd parties to push their consoles and they have been very lucky. PS1 or PS2 needed the Capcoms, Konamis, EAs, and Square Enixs of the world to sell consoles. They have very few original 1st party games. There has been not one system seller for PSP yet. I will be honest and say that after my dad say Lumines running on it, he made me get him one. Other than that, there are few exclusives and nothing that will alone sell it.
3rd, short battery life. The PSP can play anywhere from 3-8hours on a single battery charge. Setting such as brightness and volume could affect that and watching a UMD movie at full volume (which is not loud) could shorten it too.
4th, the PSP is a very delicate machine. At launch, there were complaints about dead pixels, buttons that weren't working, and ejecting discs. The PSP has lots of delicate parts and dropping it might just end its life. It just feels fragile.
5th, a horrible E3 2k6 showing. Now that is just a matter of opinion and is not really correct, I think I spent about 20 minutes in Sony's PSP area and that might be my problem, but honestly, there was nothing to write home about.
So, in the end, the DS might just win after all. Its still selling hundreds of thousands weekly worldwide and with the introduction of DS Lite, Sony is gonna have to come up with something. This is the first time in a long time Sony should be shaking in their little booties.