The Problem: Although the PSP now has a solid line-up of great games, Sony's handheld continues to lag behind the sales of the Nintendo DS. After two years of solid (but not great) numbers Sony finally decided to drop the price of the portable ... by a mere $30! Does Sony know what they are doing or did they wait too long to drop the price of their PSP?

The Situation: Months before Sony officially released their PlayStation Portable the internet buzz was about how much the system would retail for. Some suggested that it could be as high as $300, while others hoped it would be as low as $150. Unfortunately neither prediction was right, because the fully loaded PSP (which included a 32 mb memory stick, headphones and a carrying sleeve) was marked at a whopping $250. At that price a lot of gamers scoffed, disappointed that a handheld would retail for that much.

For the first few months the system managed to pull in respectable numbers, but as the software started to dry up so did the unit sales. Unfortunately for Sony at the exact same time their problems started Nintendo's good luck began to kick in. All of a sudden the Nintendo DS was swamped with great games and gamers still not sold on the two-screened portable got that extra incentive thanks to a well-timed price drop. But the PSP remained at $250, almost twice the price of the Nintendo DS.

One year into the PSP's life Sony FINALLY decided to drop the price ... but not by actually giving retailers a price cut. Instead they repackaged the console without that 32 mb memory stick and all of the extras. Sony decided to sell the core system at a fifty dollar bargain, which managed to stimulate sales for a short amount of time. Even though 2006 proved to be a stellar year for PSP software Sony continued to have problems convincing gamers to buy into their portable vision. While the system did sell, the software wasn't moving and the Nintendo DS was running laps around Sony's product.

Finally in 2007, a week after the PSP's two year anniversary, Sony decided to give the handheld its first real price cut, dropping the core unit from $200 to $170. It's yet to be seen if this price cut will turn Sony's sales around, but what is known is that by waiting so long Sony has lost out on a lot of software sales and ended up hurting the console's overall success. Due to the low software sales third party companies are slowing production of games, something that will only hurt the PSP over the course of the next year or two. At this point retailers were threatening to remove the PSP selection from their stores, literally forcing Sony to drop the price of their unit. One has to wonder what Sony is thinking ... or if they are thinking at all.

The Solution: Sony should have lowered the price to at least $150, that way it would have been competitive with the Nintendo DS. Had they lowered the price to $150 they would have been able to go to each of the third parties and suggest that sales are going to pick up and there are going to be millions of new PSP owners looking for new games. It's bad enough that they waited until two years later to lower the price, but the fact that they only lowered it $30 makes some of us wonder if they are seeing the Nintendo DS figures each month.

The Problem: For years people thought Capcom couldn't count to three, but then Street Fighter III hit and everybody gave the company a break. But here we are ten years later and all Capcom hasn't even hinted that they are interested in working on Street Fighter IV. These days Capcom seems more interested in re-releasing their classic Street Fighter games (such as Street Fighter II Turbo on the Xbox Live Arcade) and not working on a true sequel. When will this change? Will Capcom ever resurrect the Street Fighter franchise?

The Situation: Once upon a time Capcom was best known for their Street Fighter sequels, when you add all of the updates, spin-offs and 3D recreations together you are left with around two dozen Street Fighter games, quite a lot considering the short amount of time the fad lasted. But then all of a sudden Capcom decided that it was above creating new Street Fighter games and for ten years they've let the franchise sit in limbo as fighting game fans have moved on to Tekken, Virtua Fighter and anything else they can get their hands on.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not like Street Fighter has been absent from our lives over the past ten years, it's just that no new games have been released since 1997. Capcom seems perfectly content re-releasing their greatest Street Fighter hits on everything from the PSP to the Xbox 360 to the PlayStation 3, but so far there's no suggestion that Ryu and Ken would return for something new, something called Street Fighter IV.

There is potentially good news for fans of the World Warriors; recently Capcom announced that they would be remaking the arcade hit Super Street Fighter II Turbo with all new graphics. This upcoming Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 download gives some of us fans a little glimmer of hope that maybe they are testing the waters and will release a real sequel in the near future. While it's true that this will still be a port of a thirteen year old game, the fact that they are actually going in and redrawing everything (fighters, backgrounds, etc.) may be the first step in a larger plan to bring out either Street Fighter IV or Street Fighter Alpha IV. Even if they aren't committed to a new sequel, it does look like Capcom is at least testing the waters to see if there's much of a demand which can only be construed as a good thing.

The Solution: Now that everybody loves 3D fighting games, perhaps it's time for Capcom to bring us a brand new 2D Street Fighter game using the power of the next generation consoles. If they do it right it will probably cost a lot less to make than your average Gears of War-style action game and would definitely be unique in this world of Tekken and Virtua Fighter. Hopefully they will come do it quick, otherwise some of us will lose faith and get on with our lives.