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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."
including multiple non-interactive game demos
Wow... I never thought a marketing drone would be able to come up with such a convoluted way of saying 'commercials'.
fixed their japanese launch problems
(like "launching" disks and the flakey square button)
I don't feel the need to preorder... I'll wait for the 2nd generation.
Some intrepid explorer has travelled to the US and has posted a pretty thorough (and glowing) review of the aforementioned device.
n y_psp/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/01/review_so
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Here is the link. Unfortunately the UK price for the basic version is £180 or about $340. :-(
Omnis amans amens
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.
It just doesn't seem very comfortable or thought out. In a time when systems are getting smaller, more portable and comfortable to hold, this looks like something designed in the 80s. It may have great games, but how is it going to sell if it doesn't look cool? Maybe I'm suffering from too much iPod exposure, but there is definitely something to good packaging, and my $0.02 says that the PSP just doesn't have it.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Metal Gear Acid: Best Played While Tripping.
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.
$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
With all that bundled in, it would be nice if it came with an actual game. I am not buying the PSP to watch Spiderman.
Looks to me like they are marketing this as a portable mini-entertainment center. By including the Spiderman 2 movie, they are differentiating themselves from other handhelds.
I'm wondering how much the UMD disc movies will cost. Will people really want to buy yet another version of their favorite movies for $19.99 (price amount is just a guess)?
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
None of the Best Buy employees I have ever seen have had any product knowledge anyways.
- Minimum of $250 for system with memory stick, headphones
with remote control, battery, ac adaptor, soft case, cleaning cloth,
and a demo disc.
- First 1,000,000 buyers also get a Spider-Man 2 movie that plays on the PSP.
- Launch titles that are mostly franchises and remakes, including a whole pile of EA Sports games.
- Low-end games cost $40, with others presumably costing more. (Wal-mart's online store shows $49.92 for many games.)
That prices me right out of the market at $250, even with all that bonus crud thrown into the box. But that's not the worst of it, since the big stores, the ones most likely to have anything to sell, will be selling bundles that include two or more games and other needless crud. As of right now, EB Games has one way to buy the PSP and it's a bundle that costs $400. GameStop's got bundles that range from $380 to $480.Look, all I want is basic system with a charger, a (small) memory stick, and one game. I don't need headphones or a remote control or a soft case or a cleaning cloth or a demo disc. I don't have any desire to tote around Spider-Man 2 to show off to friends. I don't doubt that the folks who can afford the PSP will think it's the bee's knees, and I'll even envy them their new toy, but I've got better uses for my gaming cash. With the robust used GBA game market, I'm going to get a much better fun-for-dollar return sticking with my 'burning GBA.
Sorry, Sony, you lost me on this one.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Yea, Nintendo DS is fine, if you're a TEN year old. What a load of crap.
Well, as a 50+ year old gamer, I see it exactly the other way around. The DS offers some real innovation, with features such as dual screens and touch/stylus control that aren't available elsewhere. The games aren't all just rehashes of console games. And it looks like it will have a good mix of 3D and 2D games, especially since it plays GBA games (in fact, you can have a GBA and DS game plugged in at the same time), while the Metroid demo demonstrates that its 3D capabilities are good.
A portable PS2 missing one of the analog sticks just doesn't excite me. I don't do that much gaming on the go, and if I want to play PS2 style games, I'll play it on my big screen TV and PS2 at home. Nor am I all that interested in watching movies on that little tiny screen. If I want to watch a DVD while traveling, I'd rather watch it on my laptop, which at least has a decently sized screen. But I think that the PSP will sell well with the kiddies. Features like movie play that aren't that appealing to adults will be more successful with kids who don't have their own TVs, laptops, and DVD players. I can imagine a parent setting a kid up with a movie on a memory stick to keep him quiet on a long auto trip.
No, the Game Boy has always been seen as the undisputed king of handheld gaming. If you wanted handheld gaming, you got a Game Boy; that the market for handheld gaming systems has traditionally been saturated by younger consumers is not the fault of the Game Boy.
There has yet to be a single entry that has even come close to challenging Nintendo's dominance in this arena; while the PSP may stand the best chance yet, let's not re-write history to make the Game Boy seem like something it really isn't.
The PSP with its sexy design, playstation type games and ability to play movies will appeal to the same 15 - 25 male demographic that has made the playstation so successful.
The biggest reason the 15-25 male demographic has been the "big" demographic in video games has more to do with the relatively short history of video gaming in general than anything. You're seeing so many 15-25 year-old males because they're the ones who were playing Nintendo and Sega Master System back when video games really were considered toys for little boys--and by and large the only people playing them were little boys. Now that video games are becoming more mainstream--now that they're no longer seen as the exclusive domain of small children and nerds--you're going to see a much broader market for this kind of thing. Heck, we're seeing it already.
I'm not saying that PSP isn't going to become a serious force--it may yet, I honestly don't know--all I'm saying is that you're making some erroneous assumptions. The world of video games looks radically different today than it did ten years ago, and a lot of the old assumptions really aren't valid anymore.
(On a tangent: I'm not convinced that the "playstation-style games" are going to go over as well on a handheld-sized screen. Part of the reason handheld games so often look cartoony is that it is very, very hard to do the realistic, highly-detailed game environments we've come to expect from consoles on a small screen. What looks stunning on a television often looks cluttered, nondescript and smudgy on a handheld screen...)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions