Former Sony exec reveals Nintendo’s sweary response to original PSP reveal

A former PlayStation boss has revealed how one Nintendo employee reacted to Sony’s PSP, and it’s not exactly family friendly. 

Sony might not have a massive presence in the handheld gaming market today but back in 2005, it made a big splash with the PSP. 

The console, which was Sony’s first jump into the handheld market, went on to sell 80 million units – making it the best-selling handheld console not made by Nintendo and the 11th most successful console of all-time. Its successor, the PS Vita, wasn’t so fortunate and only sold 16 million units, which caused Sony to abandon the market entirely. 

While the Nintendo DS dwarfed the PSP’s popularity by the end, with 154 million units sold worldwide, Sony’s handheld was seen as a significant rival for some time, and was especially popular in Japan.

It seems Nintendo felt the threat of Sony internally too, at least based on one employee’s reaction, which has been recalled by former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden. 

Speaking in an interview with The Expansion Pass about the PSP era, Layden said: ‘I remember when we showed the first PSP back in – what was that? 2003, ’04, ’05’ something like that. I had a friend who was working at Nintendo, and he sent me a text message saying, ‘You b**tards.’ I said, ‘Hey, bro, you know, it’s all fun and games’.’

While it’s likely a light-hearted jostle between friends, it’s still an interesting peek behind the curtain. 

At the time of the PSP reveal, Layden was vice president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, a role he kept until 2007. He later became president and CEO of Sony America, and subsequently chairman of Sony Interactive Worldwide Studios, before he departed in 2019. 

Layden believes the PSP, while successful, was hurt by piracy. ‘PSP did reasonably well, but then the OS got hacked and you could jailbreak it pretty easily,’ he added. 

Sony’s next generation plans are rumoured to involve a handheld of some kind and Layden believes, if the company wants to avoid another PS Vita situation, it might want to consider creating a separate division for it, so it isn’t eating into the same marketing budget. 

‘Sony has always struggled in marketing two platforms at the same time,’ Layden said. ‘[The] PlayStation 3 was a struggle, but PSP was very successful. Then Vita came out and that was doing well, but then PlayStation 3 got itself into a better place. 

‘You only have so many marketing dollars and so you’re trying to put them against different products.’

In regards to any future handhelds, Layden says that ‘if Sony does get in the handheld business again, you might almost set up a different company to do it. That would be their only focus instead of having one marketing budget trying to put it against a handheld and a console and software. It loses its focus.’

It’s an interesting take, but at a time when handhelds are closely entwined with the home console experience, like the Switch 2 and PlayStation Portal, the competition between their own products feels like less of a concern. 

Layden’s comments make sense in terms of how handheld consoles used to work but most rumours suggest that the new PlayStation portable will be a cut-down PlayStation 5, in terms of technology, and likely will have little or no bespoke software.

Sony has not announced anything regarding its next generation console, but recently, a filing suggested they could be gearing up to announce a PlayStation Portal OLED. 

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