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PSP to Miss EU Launch Date

Posted by Zonk on from the europeans-don't-play-games-anyway dept.

GamesIndustry.biz has the news that just one day after announcing the U.S. launch date for the PSP, the European launch of the PSP may not happen until after the first quarter. From the article: "Speaking with the news service, Sony's Kenichi Fukunaga admitted that the firm cannot manufacture enough of the devices to satisfy demand in all three major markets - which has pushed the schedule for the European launch back."

49 comments

  1. No suprise by pikakilla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is no big suprise. With sony losing 200 dollars per unit (it costs 400 dollars to make), and with the US release date around the corner, it isnt that big of a suprise that the eu date is off.

    1. Re:No suprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And your source for the $400 USD production cost is.....

    2. Re:No suprise by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 1

      Weren't the PSP's going to be priced about $249 ?
      Makes the loss about 150 in that case ; Still quite a hefty ammount.

    3. Re:No suprise by pikakilla · · Score: 0, Troll
      Analysts. Before the launch in japan and before the launch price announcement in the US, everyone was placing the price of the PSP at around 300-400 dollars due to the manufacturing process (do a quick search on google), some were even placing the price as high as 500 assuming that sony wanted to offset the manufacturing costs.

      Supposedly, the only reason that the price is so low is because of the DS and its low cost. Granted, SCE president says that the costs of the unit wont come down to profitability range (costs below 250) until march (optimistic estimate), but Sony had to lower their price to its current point because of the below expected price of the DS (Industry analysits were expecting a 200 dollar price for the DS)

      Personally, i believe that the DS is just a sideshow for nintendo before the GBA2 (nintendo even calls the DS a "third tier"). I think it was just created to keep the nintendo folks on nintendos side and to keep sony on its toes. If Sony got a firm hold on the handheld market before nintendo could release any kind of compedetor, nintendo would be truly sol.

    4. Re:No suprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You still didn't explain where you go the $400 USD cost from. It's been noted that Sony would be taking a hit by selling it for $200 or so, but no one's ever quoted a number. Let's just keep it to the facts, bub.

    5. Re:No suprise by SetupWeasel · · Score: 1

      For something that is a "sideshow" Nintendo is certainly pushing hard for it. I don't think that this was a spur of the moment thing. When Sony announced the PSP at E3 2003, it was the start of development. Though Nintendo announced the DS well after Sony, the DS was clearly well ahead of the PSP in its development cycle at E3 2004. Maybe this is because Sony shackled their engineers to the specs announced at E3 2003 (long before the first prototype was made), or maybe the DS was in the works longer than we think.

    6. Re:No suprise by SetupWeasel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      $400 is an analyst figure, but let's put it this way: Sony is losing enough that they don't want to let their investors find out how much.

    7. Re:No suprise by pikakilla · · Score: 1, Troll
      http://www.themis-group.com/uploads/Mobile%20Platf orm%20Wars%20-%20TR04.pdf

      Read the psp price information area.

      400 dollars as a launch price was floated around for a while. Knowing that consoles lose money at launch, i can reasonably deduct that the price of the console is 500 dollars to produce. Now, to give sony credit i will assume that the manufacturing price dropped recently in lieu of their price drop, so roughly 400 dollars.

      Sony is not going to say "It costs us xxx to manufacture this product and we are selling it for yyy at a loss of zzz" because that doesnt look good to investors. You have to infer what the launch price is and deduce from there. I could be off by 50 or 100 (i dobut it though), but the fact is that they are losing a lot of money on the psp.

    8. Re:No suprise by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      That means the stores buy them from Sony for somewhere inbetween $125 and $200 most likley.

      With retail markup ranging from 25-100 % in most cases.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    9. Re:No suprise by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 1
      hehe, I completely forgot about that step :)

      The good ol' days, when retailers were selling shit without making a profit ;-)

  2. Gah! by PerspexAvenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is starting to get old.
    Anyone care to explain why Europe tends to be the second-class citizen for practically all tech releases?

    *miffed*

    1. Re:Gah! by I8TheWorm · · Score: 1

      Though it's hardly *fair*, more units are typically sold in the US than Europe, and there's no way Sony is going to push back a local release.

      --
      Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
    2. Re:Gah! by digitalchinky · · Score: 1

      Too far from asia? Maybe their industry giants (telecomms and such) already have market domination and control the 'flow' of electronic appliances.

      Similar thing happens in Australia.

    3. Re:Gah! by digitalchinky · · Score: 1

      Bad form to reply to self - telecommunications companies being only a single example - please don't take my post too literally. It's the concept of making money on a global scale.

    4. Re:Gah! by White+Roses · · Score: 1

      Well, I've been wanting a smart Roadster in the US for about 2 years now. Where the hell is it?? Yes, I know, it's only one car, and Europe does tend to get the shaft on the tech side rather consistently. But I really think it's just that (a) it's not made in Europe and (b) the European market for this, and other, technological toys is rated small, whether it deserves it or not.

      --
      Do not touch -Willie
    5. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably because its citizens act like the rest of the world is second class, so us non-europeans get a kick out of yankin' your chains.

    6. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The smart coupe (not the stylish roadster) has been been available in Canada for several months. The US may get it soon enough.

    7. Re:Gah! by AzraelKans · · Score: 1
      Easy. It's due to the number of possible buyers, The number 1 country with electronic consummers is Japan, the rest follow. More or less the table is set like this.
      • 1.-Japan (Asia)
      • 2.-US
      • 3.-Europe (UK, spain, france, etc)
      • 4.-Latin America (we've got a pretty good share of consumers)
      • 5.-Rest of the world
      This is the reason why the PS2 beats the Xbox in sales by about 13 million (instead of a small margin in the US), because the Xbox is (barely) number 3 in sales in Japan and the Japanese market is huge.
      --
      Go ahead MOD my day!
      More opinions here
    8. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137488&c id=11496996

    9. Re:Gah! by Bluetick · · Score: 1

      If you mean the video game market (and not consumer electronic goods in general, because I have no idea), the US market is almost twice as large as the Japanese market.

    10. Re:Gah! by rmccann · · Score: 1

      In terms of PlayStations per population it goes like this: 1 - Japan 2 - Ireland

    11. Re:Gah! by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "Anyone care to explain why Europe tends to be the second-class citizen for practically all tech releases?"

      It'd help if Europe used NTSC like USA and Japan does. Not saying it'd solve it, but it'd definitely help. (Note: I'm talking about the video game market in general. For obvious reasons, the PSP is exempt.)

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    12. Re:Gah! by Zangief · · Score: 1

      I can think three things that don't help.

      -PAL Television system (not in the case of handhelds, but it stablishes a trend)
      -The need to translate to several languages, like german, french, italian, spanish in some cases, etc. This also applies to some localizations that may be necessary.
      -Wacky regulations. Think of the changes that games need in order to be published in germany. I remember that Acclaim had to change every human to robots to sell Turok there. Same thing with Contra (Probotector in EU). I don't know if this regulations are still up.

      Many more may exist.

      I think that the localization is the key factor. Animal Crossing for the gamecube was delivered more than one year (maybe two, IIRC) later than the USA version. I have heared that that game has a massive amount of text.

    13. Re:Gah! by SetupWeasel · · Score: 1

      The Xbox is not barely in third in Japan. They are dead last. Not only that, but the margin between the PS2 and XBOX is not that small in other regions. PS2 has sold something like 25 million to XBOX's 10-11 mil and GameCubes 8-9 million in North America.

    14. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Xbox is selling extremely poor in Japan, so poor that PSOne's were outselling it last year!

    15. Re:Gah! by DrSkwid · · Score: 1


      NTSC was invented to deliberately be at odds with the EU.

      There is no way on earth we will change to Never The Same Colour, thank you.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    16. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, you've made the common joke, but get back to reality.

      NTSC was created and put to use first. The pre-EU EU developed PAL using principles taken from the original NTSC standard. NTSC was revised to use some of the same improvements, plus others. But in the end, PAL users ended up with 100 more lines of resolution (effectively cut in half thanks to interlacing, so truly only 50 lines sharper per frame), slightly improved color consistency from frame to frame, and a lower standard framerate by 10 fps.

      When it comes to compatibility, it's PAL users that suffer the most. Even non-PAL videos and games that have been converted to PAL look like crap when displayed on a PAL display. But the conundrum lies in the fact that there is just so much NTSC media that is worth viewing and/or playing, thanks to the origins of the creators of this media (Japan for games, U.S. for movies, etc). The reverse simply isn't the case, giving birth to the fact that nobody in the U.S. gives a damn about worrying over PAL compatibility. My friends in Europe unfortunately do not have the same luxury, especially since they are gamers and film buffs.

      So if you never switch, that's just fine for the rest of us. You'll just have to make do with being second-class until digital standards erase any technical barriers that still exist between yourselves and foreign media creators. t may seem that I'm being callous, but at least I'm not the one cracking old jokes from a disadvantageous position.

    17. Re:Gah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Fine, so split Europe into two regions, then: UK, and Everyone Else.

      I'm sitting in England. We speak English. There's a clue in the name. It's not as if the localisation effort includes changing Americanisms such as "color", "favorite" and "gotten" into the British English equivalents. So why not give the UK an early release?

      (Especially with Nintendo - they seem quite happy to put "60Hz TV required" on the back of the Zelda rereleases, so why not put "English language only" on the back of those games that they really can't be bothered to translate? Even Australia got Animal Crossing before we did. At least I was able to load the US version with Freeloader.)

  3. Imports? by White+Roses · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since there are a few PSP Japan imports floating around the US, what's to stop EU consumers from doing the same?

    --
    Do not touch -Willie
    1. Re:Imports? by wolfmanXUG · · Score: 1

      I am waiting to hear the US launch has been pushed out once again.

      Now not to be harsh or anything its like the US is 2nd class and the EU is an after thought. Though I am sure there will be some US units to make it to EU before the launch there.

    2. Re:Imports? by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

      Nothing.

      People that really want them will get them. Normal consumers, won't go through the efforts.

      --
      Pretty Pictures!
    3. Re:Imports? by Firehawke · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's it entirely. Japan is treated first-class since it comes from there. The US is a large market but not as big as Japan, so it's second-class (doesn't help that the US division of Sony in particular has its head so far up its ass-- 3D gaming only bias, anyone?), however..

      Europe not only needs multiple languages in localization but frequently massive cuts need to be made due to anti-violence laws that aren't uniform across Europe as compared to a single set of laws for the US (Contra to Probotector changes, anyone?) and for consoles there's the whole reformatting to PAL issue.. localization for Europe is considerably tougher than for the US. While the PAL thing doesn't count for a handheld, it's the overall "Japan first, US won't take so long, but Europe will be slow going" mindset.

      I won't be surprised if the US launch date slips for having difficulty producing enough hardware. Not sure if I'm going to be in line for one or not, but I'll probably wait until the initial warfare dies off and it's easier to get one in the stores if I get one at all-- or possibly even wait for the second revision since I've had *really* bad luck with first rev Sony hardware to date.

    4. Re:Imports? by Fred+Or+Alive · · Score: 1

      I don't think there's much problem with censorship anymore. I can't think of any massivley changed games apart from Contra (although Ninja Gaiden had some bits removed apparently[1], but not in a major makeover way). Apart from Germany, they're still a bit weird. A couple of years ago the ratings systems were mostly combined (apart from Germanies, and I think a few countries have 'local variations').

      Hell, Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt are both European games (Scottish, to be precise).

      The localisation thing is even worse in the UK (we speak English anyway, and it's not like they usually correct the spellings for British English anyway), but surely they could work out a system to do all the translations together. Some companies do. Halo 2 came out in Europe a few days after the US for instance, with localisation. Companies are beginning to try, at least with big titles. Or small titles in the case of GBA Shining Force, which came out earlier in Europe with ENG/FRE/ESP/DEU/ITA localisation than in the US with English only. But that's Sega, they like Europe...

      (We also got a fully multilingual version of Zelda: Minish Cap a couple of months before the US release, but IMO that's becuase Nintendo is desperate for Euro sales.)

      I just wish companies would stop screwing Europe. Although I can kinda understand stepped launches for hardware, it's still anoying, especially as Sony seemed to be saying it would be out in Europe at the same time as the US.

      PAL optimisation is a whole other issue, if companies actually bother that much about it anyway (not time to type it all ATM anyway).

      [1] It was still rated 16+ by PEGI anyway, although they might've wanted to avoid a BBFC certificate in the UK.

      --
      10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
      20 GOTO 10
    5. Re:Imports? by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "Since there are a few PSP Japan imports floating around the US, what's to stop EU consumers from doing the same?"

      Price.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    6. Re:Imports? by DrSkwid · · Score: 1

      Dubious legality :

      The legality of importing goods from outside the EU without the authorisation of the brand owner was tested last year with the drawn-out Tesco vs Levi Strauss case, which the clothing manufacturer won. Tesco had imported jeans from a US supplier and therefore bypassed the manufacturer's authorised channel.

      Because it dealt directly with a US supplier it managed to keep costs low and sold the jeans at reduced prices, much to the pleasure of Tesco's customers.

      But this was an infringement of trademark law, not copyright law. As it stands now, if a company can prove that a product is genuine and gets permission from the brand owner, it is free to import.

      Rules for within the EEA are a little different. The Tesco precedent applied to transatlantic trade, where products in the US are not marketed within the EEA.

      If a distributor or reseller in the EEA gets its hands on non-counterfeit products from within that area then it is free to sell them at whatever price it chooses.

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  4. Same old Sony. by r00td43m0n · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not surprised they pushed it back because they're in short supply. Sony had this issue with the PSX and the PS2, so it's nothing new. There are always two things you can count on with a new Sony game console release: 1) It will be in short supply 2) It will have one or more serious flaws.

    1. Re:Same old Sony. by hollismb · · Score: 1

      3.) You get yet another Wipeout and Ridge Racer game, and since there's so few decent launch titles, people actually care.

    2. Re:Same old Sony. by Momoru · · Score: 1

      3) It will produce wave after wave of crappy game, with a few games good enough to make you finally have to buy the system

      4) It will be the best selling system on the market

  5. Not Enough Units... by TheOnlyJuztyn · · Score: 1

    ... because the Q/A testers who make sure they work are having too much fun twisting and popping the UMD drive out of every unit they test.

    1. Re:Not Enough Units... by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 0, Troll

      UMD?
      Unloader of Mass Destruction?!?!?!
      OMFG!!

      Sony = Terrorism!

      I'm sorry, I let the media take over my body for a moment. I'm okay now.

      --
      Pretty Pictures!
  6. Dont forget also... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    from the europeans-don't-play-games-anyway dept.

    They also don't take baths, brush their teeth, and the women don't shave their pits anyway.

    1. Re:Dont forget also... by DrSkwid · · Score: 2, Funny

      you missed the real difference

      --
      There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  7. I think Sony is making a big mistake by SetupWeasel · · Score: 1

    They should have launched in Europe first. It isn't like the first half of the year is a major American buying time. The DS would not claim that many more users by June. Sony had the chance to launch alongside the DS in Europe, and I'm a little surprised they didn't take it.

    Maybe they had to localize their games, but I think it was an oppertunity lost. Now the DS will have more than a month head start in 2 of the 3 regions.

  8. At least.. by Fr05t · · Score: 1

    At least European users will get to see if Sony actually fixed any of the problems with the PSP since the JP launch.

    Personally I plan on going to place my pre-order in the next week. Lost my PS2 when my apartment got broken into and I've wanted to pick up an mp3 player so I'm hoping to kill 2 birds with one stone. Hopefully it won't be killing them with a flying UMD!

  9. Dollar vs. Euro? by Not-a-Neg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With the current low dollar value, wouldn't it be cheaper for Europeans to buy their PSPs from the US anyway? If you're pissed, just get someone in the states, or an import shop near you, to pre-order all of ours for yourselves! Personally, I'm waiting for the inevitable $50+ price drop that'll probably come in the summer or winter of 2006, and picking up an XBOX and/or PS2 this year to tide me over until the next-gen consoles drop in price as well.

    --
    -==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
    1. Re:Dollar vs. Euro? by Wirr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      With the current low dollar value, wouldn't it be cheaper for Europeans to buy their PSPs from the US anyway?

      Theoretically yes. But first there is the arrogance of American companies which seem to think that shipping to Europe is not worth the hassle (e.g. Amazon - we can order books from them though) and then there is customs and VAT.
      It's much easier for me to order from an Asian specialist like Lik-Sang, which is what I actually did, after hearing that the European release is delayed.

      BTW: Does anyone know if it's possible to get the 'Good Eats' DVDs in Germany ???

  10. Boy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Paint Shop Pro just isn't what it used to be.

  11. Wipeout Pure slipped too by slot32 · · Score: 1

    I'm not going to buy a PSP until I can buy Metal Gear, Wipeout Pure, and Gran Tourismo on it... Pure's release slipped, so frankly, I couldn't care less how far they slip this launch. I'm pissed that they do it to Europe though, and include the UK in it (no PAL/NSTC excuses this time...)

    --
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