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

Buzzwords

[Anonymous Coward]

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'.

How about a game

[Telvin_3d]

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.

Re:As a best buy Employee...

[e2ka]

None of the Best Buy employees I have ever seen have had any product knowledge anyways.

My take

[jvmatthe]

Here are the factors that stand out to me:

• 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.

Re:with this price

[American AC in Paris]

The Game Boy, while succesful, has always been seen as a childs toy.

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...)