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PSP Pricing, Competitiveness Analyzed
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Yahoo/Reuters Japan report discussing the upcoming conflict between Nintendo's GameBoy Advance and Sony's PSP handheld consoles. Some of the most interesting speculation comes on pricing, where the article says: "Sony has not set a price for the PSP, a multi-media unit that also plays movies and music, but analysts expect it to sell for 19,000-30,000 yen ($161-$255), well above the 12,500 yen price tag for GameBoy Advance SP." Overall, the piece portrays Nintendo as "no pushover" when it comes to ceding GBA dominance, suggesting the PSP is not a direct competitor, and moreover, that Japanese analysts "..argue that Sony's incentive to go after market share is not as high this time because mobile games provide smaller margins, and less profit, than console games."
"Nintendo has an edge over its rivals because its own franchises, notably Pokemon, strongly appeal to elementary schoolchildren, the core user group for handheld game machines," said Takashi Oya, senior analyst at Deutsche Securities.
Is this true??? Have I been playing with kids toys all along? Shit, I better go get an over-priced Playstation portable, or else someone might think I'm a geek...
sigs are dumb.
"Like the toy-like GameCube and the movie-playable PlayStation (PS) 2, Game Boy will remain the leading handheld game machine while PSP will become more like a network-capable electronic gadget." I don't believe that the dvd capability of the PlayStation 2 is the reason why it is at number one versus the games. Also, this article makes the PSP seem much more like a pda than a gaming machine. I just don't see the impetus to shell out all that dough and abandoning the gameboy, which I have games from ten years back, to get a coglomonated device when I have all of those functions taken care of in individual entities. Now I will get a little off topic and admit that this is just another ploy of Sony's to gain world domination. With the psx, hopefully, it will be present in every home, documenting media exchange. The RIAA will back Sony as its secret police ubduct any pirates. Then, through shadow corporations it will slowly take over national governments throught the UN. Or, it could crash and then Microsoft will take over.