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1 Million PSPs Confirmed for U.S. Launch

Posted by Zonk on from the a-lot-of-spider-man dept.

GamesIndustry.biz has the word that Sony has one million PSP units queued up for the U.S. launch on March 24th. Their hope is to ship over three million units by the end of their fiscal year, a somewhat daunting task as the EU launch has been pushed beyond the end of Sony's fiscal year-end. From the article: "The company had previously said that it would manufacture a million units for the North American launch, but it hadn't been clear how many of those units would actually be on shelves, and how many would be stuck further back in the chain - in factories, warehouses or transit."

13 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Wait.... by ben0207 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does that mean theres a chance of people actually getting to buy one? Thatll do no good for hype, surely Sony?

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  2. Re:I, well a friend, bought my DS and... by Mr.Dippy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love Mario 64 DS but god damn I want a new game! Wario Ware looks good but It's not a must have item for me so I'll wait. But hey, remember when Nintendo 64 came out and for like 2 months there was nothing but Mario and Pilot Wing? I'm looking foward next month to getting a copy of Metroid and sometiime this year the mario kart and castlevania games will be coming out.

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    -Dipster
  3. Sittin On The Hands by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As hard as it will be, I'm going to be sitting on my hands for this one. I want to see how many of them break in the first batch and I also want to see how the software market develops for the PSP before committing any cash. Oh and let's not forget about the hacks that will develop! Hopefully it won't be too hard to get some homebrew software running on the PSP.

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  4. 1 per customer by scottind · · Score: 3, Interesting
    My gamestop called me a couple days ago and told me that i couldnt pre-order 2 PSPs, so now i have 1 PSP completely paid off and about $80 worth of store credit. I think its their strategy to ensure more customers will get one. Needless to say i am pretty pissed off.

    WEll, with this 1 mil news, i'm wondering about how good or bad the ebay "fervor rush" is going to be, i was originally hoping to sell my 2nd PSP to help cushion the purchase of the first.

    1. Re:1 per customer by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's hardly surprising. Nowadays whenever something big comes out, some fucker buys all units he can find so he can immediately resell them back at a much higher price on eBay.

  5. I got to be honest by falcon5768 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I really am having a hard time justifying buying one, at least for the time being with no software out for it.

    Granted I bought a Gameboy a long time ago and have bought them since, but in this case unlike that gameboy of years ago, I have problems with this one catching on for even as well as the GameGear did, which while short was still longer than say the Lynx or NGage.

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    1. Re:I got to be honest by falcon5768 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      thats 24, Gameboy might only have 12 or so DS titles but they have all the advance titles which makes it much easier to justify since you have well over 100 of those

      likewise of those 24, most of them are sports games. I would not be buying a PSP just to play soccer which at the moment is all the PSP seems good for.

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    2. Re:I got to be honest by oGMo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      hats 24, Gameboy might only have 12 or so DS titles but they have all the advance titles which makes it much easier to justify since you have well over 100 of those

      Maybe it justifies it if you don't already have a GBA SP. Maybe. Especially since you can't play multiplayer GBA games with the DS, or hook it up to your Cube (one of Nintendo's major GBA accessories).

      likewise of those 24, most of them are sports games. I would not be buying a PSP just to play soccer which at the moment is all the PSP seems good for.

      Most? Even if you count THUG as a sports game (which it's not), that's still 14 non-sports titles; that's more than half. Racing games aren't sports either, although there are only 3 of those, all very different.

      Soccer is all the PSP is good for? There are RPGs, shooters, fighters, puzzlers, racers, sports, x-sports, all at launch. Big-name titles like Metal Gear, Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, Wipeout, Dynasty Warriors, etc. What else do you want here exactly?

      The DS has Mario64. And that one Metroid demo. And PictoChat. If you want to play GBA games, get an SP.

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  6. FUD by oGMo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. "No software" may be a problem with the DS for the foreseeable future, but there are 24 launch titles for the PSP, and more (such as GTA) during launch week/launch month.

    These are far more titles with far bigger names than the PS2 had at launch; now with a million PSPs promised, and with a price not significantly higher than the Nintendo DS, they should have the critical mass they need.

    Remember, this is Sony, not Sega; they're good at the marketing thing. This is also not a dying Atari or an inexperienced Nokia.

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    1. Re:FUD by r00td43m0n · · Score: 2, Informative

      The price of the PSP is ONLY $100 more, but the games cost $10 to $20 more than the DS games (depending on the DS game) and $20 to $30 more than GBA titles (depending on the GBA game). The UMD movies are going to cost in between $20 and $30 dollars and the SanDisk memory cards required to play music cost between $55 (256MB) and $150 (1GB). The cost of buying the PSP and everything needed to take advantage of the PSP's features is well over double the cost of the DS.

    2. Re:FUD by oGMo · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The price of the PSP is ONLY $100 more

      Are you Canadian? Because in USD, the DS is $150, and the PSP is $185. That's $35 more.

      but the games cost $10 to $20 more than the DS games (depending on the DS game) and $20 to $30 more than GBA titles (depending on the GBA game).

      Like hell. New GBA titles are $30-35, as are DS titles (click the tab at the top). New PSP titles are $39-49, which is $5-15 more.

      The UMD movies are going to cost in between $20 and $30 dollars

      Maybe you're psychic, since no movie prices have been announced; but based on the other "facts" you've listed, you're not a very good one.

      SanDisk memory cards required to play music cost between $55 (256MB) and $150 (1GB)

      256MB memory stick pro cards are under $40 on Amazon.

      The cost of buying the PSP and everything needed to take advantage of the PSP's features is well over double the cost of the DS.

      While the EB site is forcing you to get a "bundle", that's not the only place you can get them. I've got a PSP alone on order from an EB store for $20.

      Assuming you don't want to just use pictochat or play the Prime demo, you'll want a full game; that'll be an extra $30, putting your DS at $180. Double that is $360, so we've got some money to play with... $185 for the unit, $40 for the memstick, $50 for a game. That's $275, which is definitely more than your DS bundle, but then again you've got an MP3/movie player in the bundle too. Definitely not double the price.

      And you have an actual selection of games to pick from, not... Mario64 DS.

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    3. Re:FUD by sl3xd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Remember, this is Sony, not Sega; they're good at the marketing thing.

      Oddly enough, I seem to remember Sega being the company to beat before the days of the Saturn; in fact, I remember quite clearly when the Game Gear was impossible to get, because they were completely sold out.

      And I've seen far more people playing games on a Nokia system (not n-gauge) than on any gameboy; I've seen people who wouldn't be caught dead playing on a console playing games on a Nokia phone. Nokia isn't inexperienced in the game market -- they honestly have higher penetration than Nintendo has with the GameBoy Advance. It's just that their purpose-built game-phone makes its owner look like an IDIOT when he is using it as a phone; this alone kept many from buying it.

      I look at it this way: I've seen many portable systems by many talented companies.

      Only one has ever been sucessful: Nintendo.

      I'm no fanboy of either; the PSP has a large screen of supposedly great quality. Nintendo's answer to such a large screen was to have two smaller screens (one of them a touch screen). Both have wireless networking/multiplayer. I would give the durability nod to Nintendo -- both for its games and for the system itself. And durability is rather important for a portable system. The disc the PSP uses will definately reduce the playtime per charge. I've seen this show before, and it always goes very badly for Nintendo's competition.

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  7. Re:WHAT ABOUT EUROPE? by superpulpsicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The original poster is not offtopic at all.

    Sony is well known for deliving exactly just enough of whatever the suppliers ask. That's why there is such a ridiculous supply/demand problem. Europe and UK probably won't see it until it is a guaranteed success in the US after Japan. Sigh...