Sony Announces PSP Launch Date

Today we have word that Sony has announced a U.S. launch date and price for their upcoming PSP handheld. The date? March 24th, and the unit will retail for $249.99 when it hits the street. From the article: "the PSP Value Pack contains ... [a] 32 MB Memory Stick, headphones with remote control, battery pack, AC adaptor, soft case and cleaning cloth, movie/music/game video sampler UMD disc including multiple non-interactive game demos, and for the first one million PSP Value Packs shipped, a special UMD video release of the feature film Spider-Man(TM) 2 from Sony Pictures Entertainment."

Comments

Meanwhile, over at El Reg ...

[SpooForBrains]

Some intrepid explorer has travelled to the US and has posted a pretty thorough (and glowing) review of the aforementioned device.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/01/review_son y_psp/

Pre-order on Amazon.co.uk

[danormsby]

Here is the link. Unfortunately the UK price for the basic version is £180 or about $340. :-(

Re:$250 for a handheld?

[SilentChris]

I don't think so at all. It's not just a game console: it's an MP3 and movie player (MPEG4s). Granted, the big limitation for awhile will be storage (memory sticks don't hold much), but you shouldn't be comparing it to Nintendo's machine. Personally, I'd compare it to any of the various video players out right now. For a screen like that, it's a steal.

Re:What's the best strategy....

[McKinney83]

Go reserve it at your local gamestore. I think at most places it's a $50 deposit, but it means you don't have to worry about not getting one.

Re:It's all about the form factor.

[XxtraLarGe]

The original GBA seemed to sell pretty well.

Re:Only 3 things missing

[Drey]

From the specs at the end of the article, reformatted to pass a /. whitespace lameness filter:

Main Input/Output
-----------------
IEEE 802.11b (Wi-Fi)
USB 2.0 (mini-B)
Memory Stick Duo(TM)
IrDA
IR Remote

Looks like it has Wi-Fi.

"Or you could use PS2 and PS1 games..."

[Nomihn0]

...which cannot be used with the PSP?

This is not the Playstation 3. The PSP is a portable media player designed to play last-generation games in a compact form factor. Compare it to the Nintendo DS.

Assuming you knew this already, I suppose you meant that Sony will port older games to the new architecture? PS1 games may be ported to PSP, but licensing issues and a general lack of funding tend to limit the selection of titles.

Pricey still

[sosuke]

$250 isn't a bad price considering what the system can do, but where it starts to hurt is the memory sticks that it uses! 1GB Sony Memory Stick is ~$200USD 4GB Sony Memory Stick is ~$900USD those prices are insane where as you can buy and entire PVP, MP3 player, and handheld game system (NDS) for cheaper cost per GB of storage if they brought their memory costs down this would be a killer piece of hardware

Re:What's the best strategy....

[themurph17]

EBWorld.com $400 pre-order (price subject to change). includes 3 games of your choice and an "accessory" to be named later. you can cancel up to 10 days before the release. Gamestop - retail stores - $50 deposit for value pack only. no games to buy minimum. my plan is to get 3 and sell 2 on Ebay to pay for mine. i have 1 order with EB and 1 Gamestop. just need to go to another Gamestop and pre-order there. the Spiderman 2 UMD pack-in is a great little bonus from Sony that should help my auctions!! thanks Sony!

Re:This should be exciting.

[jxyama]

>one would think they'd charge less at first and ramp the price up as more games are released

um, can you name me a single gaming device (or any electronics device, for that matter) where the price started low and went up without improving the specs?

you always start "too high" and then lower the price as the demand picks up.

Re:What's the best strategy....

[Anonymous Coward]

Scum-sucking fucker - your the reason the things are so hard to find in the first place. I hope you get what's coming to you.

Re:$250 for a handheld?

[k_187]

Because they didn't want you to be able to pop a PSP disk in your computer and make copies of it for your friends. Which is exactly what's happened with the two other consoles that use standard media types (PS2 & xbox) The only one that doesn't, the Gamecube, has no piracy problem.

Official Launch Lineup

[mackman]

Ape Escape®: On the Loose, Sony Computer Entertainment America
ATV Offroad Fury®: Blazin' Trails, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Darkstalkers Chronicle(TM): The Chaos Tower, Capcom
Dynasty Warriors®, KOEI
FIFA 2005, Electronic Arts
Gretzky(TM) NHL®, Sony Computer Entertainment America
Lumines(TM), Ubisoft
Metal Gear Acid(TM), Konami
MLB(TM), Sony Computer Entertainment America
MVP Baseball, Electronic Arts
NBA, Sony Computer Entertainment America
NBA Street Showdown, Electronic Arts
Need for Speed(TM) Rivals, Electronic Arts
NFL Street 2 Unleashed, Electronic Arts
Rengoku(TM): Tower of Purgatory, Konami
Ridge Racer(TM), Namco
Smartbomb, Eidos Interactive
Spider-Man 2(TM), Activision
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR®, Electronic Arts
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix, Activision
Twisted Metal: Head On(TM), Sony Computer Entertainment America
Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade, Sony Online Entertainment
Wipeout® Pure, Sony Computer Entertainment America
World Tour Soccer, Sony Computer Entertainment America

Numbers seem close...

[raygundan]

The sales for 2004 (from here appear to agree fairly well with the overall numbers the previous poster had, with the PS2 just barely outselling the GBA (note: you'll have to add the GBA and GBA SP sales yourself) in 2004, and both of them putting the smack down on everything else.

System - Sales this week - Total this year
Nintendo DS - 221,625 - 889,400
PlayStation 2 - 112,970 - 2,503,532
PSP - 85,059 - 245,078
Game Boy Advance SP - 80,271 - 2,340,693
GameCube - 29,991 - 588,528
Game Boy Advance - 1,270 - 194,148
Xbox - 499 - 36,379
Swan Crystal 70 - 7,388
PSone 40 - 13,939

Overall numbers for the year are available here and agree with what the previous poster had:

Worldwide Hardware Sales (End of 2004)
PlayStation 2 - 81.39 million
Xbox - 19.9 million
GameCube - 18.03 million
Game Boy Advance - 65.74 million
Nintendo DS - 2.84 million
Sony PSP - 0.51 million
N-Gage - 1.3 million
PSone - 101.73 million

I'm too lazy to cut and paste any more, but everything I turned up from a quick google search seemed to agree fairly well. Overall-- PS1 is in the lead, PS2 is in second, GBA is third, followed by the Xbox and the Gamecube.

Re:with this price

[PONA-Boy]

I have both the DS and the PSP.

The play on the DS is much like the GBA, with modestly improved graphics and functionality. It has the new second screen on the bottom-side that is touch sensitive. The DS games are approximately the same size as a SD card.

The PSP is smaller and definitely sexier. The graphics are on par with the console system...MUCH better than the DS. While there is only so much Japanese I know, the gameplay is smooth and crisp, with a flat eraser mouse/joystick on the left side of the screen. The PSP games are the same approximate size as a micro CD (2in. diameter at best) and are fitted into a sealed caddy.

If Sony adds IM and WiFi to the lineup and drops some serious effort into getting games out for it, the PSP will absolutely KILL the DS. The screen and graphics on the PSP are so good that I couldn't put the thing down, unlike the DS where the awkwardness of the second touchscreen below made me quit after a few minutes of play.

Oh, I recommend DriftRacer...it is very good.

-PONA-

Re:Thanks Sony, Now I'm Officially Not Interested

[incom]

"Battery life has been measured at 5.5 hours when playing Ridge Racers (one of the more disc intensive games)."

Umm... how about no:

Q: How long does the PSP's battery last?
A: The short answer is that it depends on what you're doing. The longer answer is that Sony has stated that the battery should last around six hours. With simpler-looking games, like Lumines or Mahjong Fight Club, that definitely seems to be the case. But with more graphically intensive games, like Ridge Racers, the battery doesn't last quite as long. Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life. The system has an auto-sleep function that stops the wireless drain, but that switch is there for a reason. Turn it off when you're not using it.

"The flying disc thing is something you can _make_ it do if you try really hard. It's not something which happens in normal use."

I wonder what led to the discovery of the problem then, if it wasn't during the course of normal use.

"The square button is something which some people complain about, but most don't even notice."

http://www.gamersmark.com/news/2005/01/1/5166/ Thousands of PSP returns out of only a few hundred k psp's sold? Sounds pretty serious. And it also sounds like there are no plans to fix the problem.

"Personally, given the US launch price of $250, I'm even more glad I imported mine from Japan for $350 and got it early."

It's too bad that sony didn't have prices as low as the japanese launch prices here, with thier basic pack working out to $185USD, $250 minimum at US launch looks pretty high.