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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!
Because I was one of the massess that felt the sting of the PS2 Disc Read Error monster.
:-)
Sorry Sony, I am going to wait 2 years before I will buy it.
However I love my Nintendo DS
Nintendo Hardware = Tank.
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
There are lots of things to complain about with pretty much everything that gets posted to Slashdot. You have stumbled upon one thing that is not a problem.
Every time an acronym gets posted, it should be explained? That seems a little silly, don't you think? How hard is it for you to talk some personal responsibility and figure out what the acronym is referring to in the context it is given. And for fuck's sake, Sony is mentioned, there's a Playstation icon used - what more do you want?
Nice troll, btw.
THIS ACCOUNT IS OFFICIALLY RETIRED/RETARDED.
Sony will likely take a big loss on the device in order to challenge Nintendo, just like Microsoft did with the XBOX to challenge Sony. The difference between the two is that the XBOX could be used with standard non-proprietary media and converted to a stand-alone media center ... bringing no more revenue to Microsoft. The PSP, as I understand it, requires that users either use Sony's new disc format or Sony's memory stick. They're almost guaranteed to derive at least some profit from the sale of games or memory for the device. Seems to me that Sony can afford to take a huge hit in device price to encourage more users to buy.
In Japan, the near-PS2 quality portable gaming device sold only about 500k units on account of GPU shortages.
If I recall correctly, the PS2 had a similar problem on its launch--there was a shortage of CPUs.
Who supplies Sony with these processors, and why can they never meet demand?
I got so sick and tired of acronyms while working in the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), I came up with my own. S.A.M.B.A. Society Against Making Bad Acronyms.
Of course! After all, an article about 'PSP' in the 'games' section of Slashdot is really very likely to be about a small Dutch political organization!
It couldn't possibly be about a well-known and much-debated games platform called the PSP!
Oh, wait, actually it could. After all, that would be the sensible, obvious and non-silly option.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
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.
It was called the Neogeo pocket. Fantastic platform. Then the company threw a fit and pulled it from the US Market. Hopefully Sony won't be that way. Anyone want a used Neogeo Pocket with one game?
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
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)
Using the 26 letter English alphabet there can only be 17576 possible TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). And nobody wants to settle for a five letter acronym. Three is the only way to be cool. So how about setting up a standards body to hand out these precious TLAs?
John Hancock
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?
Something like TLA (TLA Licensing Agency)?
At $200 with $50 games, the PSP is in more of a luxury range than is the $80 GBA SP with games ranging from $10 to $35. I've not made the following comparison before, and it still might not be valid, as there are several orders of cost magnitude difference in this parallel, but it's like assuming that since some manufacturer is introducing a line of luxury cars, Ford will start losing buyers of its Taurus. Obviously, the market size and selection is significantly larger than the handheld gaming market, which, again, is why I'm still not sure I'm making a valid comparison.
My point, though, is that the PSP may draw away a few older gamers that didn't have much other choice than to buy Nintendo (you know they don't want an nGage), but its larger effect is more likely that it will draw a new group of people into the handheld gaming market. I doubt the new influx of consumers will be enough to dethrone Nintendo's dominance, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
I thought the same.. until I read about this
0 4. 1223.1054.34002.htm
Lumines - Bandai - 2005
Take one part puzzle game with one part musical experience and tack on some trippy visuals and you've got Lumines, the brainchild of Tetsuya Mizaguchi (the man behind Rez). We've managed to get our hands on the Japanese version of the game and needless to say, we have to do everything in our power not to play it all day long.
The idea I simple: match up four colored blocks to that they form a square. But add to mix a unique music-based combo system and you have one of the most innovative puzzle games every made on any console. Lumines also packs in some truly impressive music and sound that will have you toe-tapping for hours on end. Out of all the PSP titles we've played so far, this is the one that's consumed our lives and we bet it will consume yours, as well.
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200412/N
no
I can see it now:
"I was using PSP to create some graphics from my new PSP game. Of course I'm using the PSP to develop it. I just hope the PSP don't think I'm violating the DCMA."
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I have had all kinds of issues with my Playstation 2. Most of them caused by moving and or dropping the console on the floor. I've been able to fix them all thanks to the information one can find on the internet.
The last time I messed up my PS2 was when my cat ran into it and it fell about a foot and a half to the floor. When I picked it up the disk drive was stuck in a semi-in, semi-out position. I took the whole think apart, which required me to seperate the disk drive from the motherboard. When I put everything back together again it worked better that it had in a year.
So even though I agree that early adopters accept a certain amount of fishiness when it comes to consoles, it can also be a useful learning experience for those who like to deal with hardware issues.
Go Gusties
Huh?
.
The reports that many of Japan's larger department stores did not accept preorders for the PSP fearing shortages was widely reported, as was the fact this contributed to the long lines on the PSP's launch day. A few quick glances at google turn up:
Like many other major retailers in Japan, Yodobashi did not take PSP preorders. As a result, more than 1,200 hopeful game fans lined up throughout the long, cold night, some taking up their position as early as 3pm the previous day.
Meanwhile, shortages of Sony's PlayStation Portable are already beginning to hit home in Japan, with the vast majority of retailers no longer able to take preorders ahead of Sunday's launch of the console."
It will be interesting to see what happens (in just over a week) when the PSP is launched in Japan. Retailers have not been accepting many preorders, and the device will be in short supply.
Sony's PSP preorder campaign was... practically nonexistent. There was no advance warning of preorders, which had most people checking in with shops on an almost daily basis trying to find out what was up. Of course, shopkeepers were completely in the dark as well.
What you won't find if you look around, however, are reports that the 2005 shipment of PSPs sold out. The first day shipment of PSPs of 200,000 did mostly sell out (i saw a figure of 160,000-180,000 in the hands of consumers on day one, which would seem to imply it would have been sold out entirely in some areas), but by the end of the year there would have been many of the PSP's 2005 shipment of 500,000 available-- I cannot find total sales figures for the year but by December 26 only 360,000 PSP units had been sold, which would have meant nearly half of the PSPs sold were on the first day. Again, the illusion of PSP "shortages" appears to mostly be a result of low availability on the first day, and since such a large chunk of 2005's PSPs weren't sold it seems reasonable to say that even if Sony had had more GPUs, they would NOT have sold any more PSPs.
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.
sorry but I played at least 12 different games that were blockbusters on my DS the day I got it.
there are over 1000 games that will play on the DS right now.
or are you trying to ignore the entire SP game selection that works awesome in the DS??
I'm not really so sure..
The PSP will win, unfortunately. It is the better machine. There really is no contest. The screen rocks.
The Game Gear was also clearly the better machine. Its screen rocked too. It didn't help. The problem is that what is "better" for a video game console may not be better for handhelds, since "better" comes with portability costs. So far Nintendo's been the only company to ever realize this, and this is the reason they've owned the market for so long.
The movie playing rocks.
I'm not so sure this is really going to help it though. Since UMD movies appear to not be happening anymore, the movie playing is limited to what you can stuff on a memory stick. It seems kind of hard to find a memory stick big enough to comfortably hold a movie for less than the $100 range. This might help the PSP into a super-high-end gadget-addict niche, but probably won't help in the general market-- and on the offchance the general market decides they like this feature, it doesn't mean the PSP will be able to benefit from it. Nintendo has an aftermarket movie and mp3 player they'll be releasing in Japan soon, and they can release it in America if it's to their benefit. It fits into a GBASP or the GBA slot of a DS, and it uses SD cards instead of memory sticks, which seem to run at about half the price.
The only thing you say I really object to though is this:
Super Nintendo 64 DS has graphics slightly worse than the N64 version.
This is just plain wrong. The DS doesn't have the graphics of the PSP, but the N64 just isn't any comparison to the DS at all. Mario 64x4 far outdoes the 64 version, plus the framerate is much better, and this is just a touched-up port-- the DS has much more to offer...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Does this mean that if I buy a PSP at Best Buy, they will try to sell me a PSP for my PSP?
I have blog like everyone else