According to PSPWorld.com, more than half of all PSP owners - "52%, to be exact" - are female. In fact, according to Nielson, PSPWorld states, 45% of overall gamers are female.
First of all - yay for us!! Aaaannd second... I told you so. Third... where the HELL are all these women hiding?? Almost every gamer I meet is a guy, and they are always fascinated to meet a female gamer. I feel like an endangered species or something! Perhaps they don't leave their houses enough (both the guys and the girls). Perhaps I am also making the false assumption that these gamers are grown women like myself; as an adult, I like to think that most gamers are adult, too. If you jump into any Halo game on Live, you'll see that's clearly not true. However, this is an undeniable trend that gamers are getting older. But I digress - this is another blog topic for another time. Back to the PSP.
As I was saying, the majority of the PSP Market is female. Thus, in response to this, in an apparent attempt to please/capture this market, PSP issued a lilac-color PSP as part of a Hanna Montana Entertainment Pack.
Um... wait... WHAT THE FUCK?! Hanna Montana? Jesus Christ, that's like slapping any female gamer over the age of 12 in the face. Ouch. That hurt, PSP. "Why you do this to me, Demi?" I'll admit, the lilac-color PSP - I could buy into that. In fact, I would actually buy that. I don't have a PSP; I have a white DS. But I'll admit, when the pink ones came out... I was tempted. I have this weird underlying desire to bring something slightly feminine to gaming... however, not the term slightly. Hanna Montana is not slightly feminine. Not to sound all dirty-hippie-feminism on your asses, but she's "a whore in sheep's clothing," as Coheed and Cambria so eloquently put it. And now she has bastardized the color purple for her own evil, evil purposes. Bad, PSP, bad.
Of course, I approach this slightly - SLIGHTLY - in jest. If the PSP is attempting to capture younger female gamers, there is certainly no smarter way to do that (from a marketing perspective) than to brand your product with Hanna Montana. She's freaking made of money. And, realistically, most female gamers will not shun the PSP because they launched a tween-focused product. My beer is more selfish - where's the PSP for adult female gamers? You could have WAY more fun with that than with the tweens product - take that for what you will.
Listen, at the end of the day, the industry is skewing toward adult gamers. Adult gamers with their own jobs and income... not allowances. Once the initial investment in a console is made, $60 bucks for a game isn't that bad. At least, I don't think so. Plus, the industry has set a smart standard price for new releases, unlike other entertainment industries. So, PSP... get me a stand-alone lilac-colored handheld for my birthday (which is in April). Pretty please?
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