http://www.computerandvideogames.com/31 ... s-failure/

I won't be buying one, so they've already failed

They are selling in low numbers in Japan, so I think that it is dead already.

Do you mean to retailers, it isn't released yet

I thought I saw sales of 14 last week in Japan. Though I could very well be confusing it with another handheld console.

You're thinking of the PSP Go - unfortunately it 'went' like diarrhoea

Well are you sure that it is not a rebranding of the PSP Go?

That's kinda what Sony's doing actually, with the idiotic decision to make the majority of games download only, apparently

That is probably to stop piracy. Though the lack of practical solutions for end users actually encouraged it. The fuss about the huge cartridges that could hold hundreds of games rather than having to carry all of the cartridges made a lot of sense for users. Sony were stupid and should have come up with their own version so that users could legally download their own copies on to their own cartridges. Come up with a system that users like and think is fair and not a rip off and you get people preferring it over the illegal option. Look at the success of the Mac/iOS app stores. Loads of apps sold and very little piracy.