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PSP North American Launch Date
captain writes "According to PSP411, Sony C.E. President and CEO Ken Kutaragi announced today at CES 2005 that the PSP will have a North American launch in March, followed by Europe around the same time. In Japan, the near-PS2 quality portable gaming device sold only about 500k units on account of GPU shortages. While the price and exact date aren't entirely clear, the USD equivalent of the Japanese sale price is a little under $200USD. Some are speculating that the price could be even lower to contest Nintendo DS's long-held portable gaming throne even further." Some good writeups about the announcement at Gamespot and 1up.com.
The original link was messed up. Here is the correct link: Link. I also got a mirror if needed.
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199 Gmail accounts!
A friend is returning from Japan and was contemplating joining the hordes selling the Japanese model on ebay, for up to $400 each. I explained the logistics and other troubles he may encounter and thankfully he elected to drop the scheme. Though he is bringing in the Capcom Travel version of Settlers of Catan for me 8^)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Sony has a joint venture with Toshiba that does all of their manufacturing. Rumor has it that they have only one 90nm capable facility, so they need to split time there between the PSP and the chip for the slimline PS2.
I thought we'd already heard how the PSP is poorly made, ha sno battery life and we shouldn't touch it incase it falls apart/gets scratched.
Seems we may as well wait for the PSportable in a couple of years fine and hopefully they will have fixed these problems.
I like muppets.
The Gameboy as a brand certainly has a long-held portable gaming throne, I mean the 1989 original lasted virtually 10 years on its own...
However I wouldn't say the DS had a long-held portable gaming throne, it's only really just come out!
Some are speculating that the price could be even lower to contest Nintendo DS's long-held portable gaming throne even further.
The DS has only been out for, what, a couple of months? It hardly holds the portable gaming throne, let alone for a long time. You're thinking of the Game Boy Advance. Granted, I'm sure that the DS will hold the throne in due time, and it probably will until Nintendo releases their next system.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The same is true of the PS2, which requires a fairly sophisticated (and thus expensive) modchip to play the latest copy-protected games. The modchips require a whole lot of soldering so people either have to buy premodded, pay a lot for shipping, or drive somewhere that they can find someone to do the mod in most cases. Xbox is trivial to mod even in the new versions, though now you do have to buy a modchip for the latest couple of revisions since they took away the pads to enable flashing TSOP. There's not going to be any room to mod the PSP :) Personally I'm quite surprised that they're not just potting the board in heat-conductive epoxy, which would solve a lot of these problems for them. It's not like those are the parts that are repaired when an Xbox is refurbished...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Where are you getting your information from?
The PSP does not have as short of a battery life as you claim. It may not come close to the SP's 11 hours worth of play, but it is reported to be variable between 3~7 depending on the task. This value is close to the DS' 7-9 hour play time but it is no where near an hour and a half as you stated.
Chewie does not get a medal. Come on, George. Can a Wookie get a medal?
Rumor has it that they have only one 90nm capable facility...
That explains why Sony is spending $1.6 billion on the next plant for the PS3 Cell processors. I guess all of those unit shortages are eating into their profits and reputation, so they need a bigger plant for the next generation of processors.
I am a gadget freak. I own both the PSP and the DS. I have owned every Nintendo Console and handheld since the original GB and the SNES.
/.'ers need to understand: once you've seen the PSP, once you've played the PSP, you'll want to own one.
The PSP will win, unfortunately. It is the better machine. There really is no contest. The screen rocks. The movie playing rocks. Super Nintendo 64 DS has graphics slightly worse than the N64 version. Ridger Racers has better graphics than - the admittedly disappointing - Ridge Racer V launch title for the PS2.
I will mourn Nintendo losing the handheld throne. They truly are good guys in an industry full of punks.
But
--- My dad's political betting
Huh?
No, it means the highest brightness setting is way too bright on the PSP when compared to other handhelds, so it's not unreasonable to set it to medium when comparing it.
- sigs are for wimps.