Slashdot Mirror
PSP Smashes Sales Records in the UK
404Ender writes "According to recent numbers the PSP has sold more than 185,000 units since launching September 1. This blows the previous record away, which happened to be set by the Nintendo DS. This is wonderful news for fans of the Sony handheld, and it certainly quiets many of the naysayers who have been pointing to the success of the DS sales compared to the PSP. Does this solidify Sony's position in the handheld market with a firm foot in the door?"
The PSP broke the N-Gage's record?!
Yay. Long live the PSP!
Does this solidify Sony's position in the handheld market with a firm foot in the door?
... Next.
No.
Of course it does, it really is an impressive piece of kit for the price and is better for gamers since a bit of healthy competition in the handset market for nintendo will hopefully produce better games for both the DS and PSP.
Perhaps the sales figures are inflated somewhat by the fact that it's been released in other markets for some time. People here have had a chance to hear lots of reports of it from elsewhere before the launch. It also probably has a larger set of games at launch than the DS did, for the same reason. It will be more interesting to see how many units in total each sell after a year on the market.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
05/Sep/2005
Sony's new PSP console has sold an estimated 185,000 total market hardware units in its launch week, outdoing Nintendo's DS (87,000 units at launch) to become the most successful UK console launch ever. 24 games were available at launch, the largest for any console, with 20 entering the All Formats Top 40 and 9 games breaking into the Top 10. Games were priced at £34.99 with the console itself retailing at £179.
Sony PSP takes over the All Formats chart this week with the biggest software launch for any console. 20 out of the 24 PSP launch titles enter the All Formats Top 40 with Sony's 'Ridge Racer' (PSP) topping the list, knocking Codemasters' 'Brian Lara International Cricket 2005' (PS2/XB/PC) down to No2 and becoming not only the fastest selling PSP game but also the fastest selling Ridge Racer game across any format. 1 in 5 people who bought a PSP game bought 'Ridge Racer', but it was over 6 years ago since a Ridge Racer title reached number 1 in the All Formats chart with Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS1) back in week 17 1999. 'Brian Lara International Cricket 2005' is the only non-PSP game in the Top 10 with PSP games filling all the remaining Top 10 positions and Sony claiming the top 2 PSP games with 'Wipeout Pure' (PSP) entering the All Formats Chart at No3. Sega's 'Virtua Tennis' and Konami's 'Metal Gear Ac!d' debut at No4 and No5 respectively, holding off EA's big PSP release 'Need for Speed: Underground Rivals' which is a new entry at No6. The most popular type of PSP game is racing with 5 racing games in the Top 10 PSP chart, including 'Toca Race Driver 2' at No6 and 'Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition' at No7, while out of the 24 PSP games released, 5 are new IP. Non-PSP new releases are eclipsed by the dominance of Sony's new console with Novalogic's 'Delta Force: Black Hawk Down' (new this week on XB and PS2) debuting at No1 in the Xbox Chart, but only reaching No15 in the All Formats Top 40. Microsoft's new RPG 'Dungeon Siege II' also suffers the same fate, reaching No1 in the PC Full Price Entertainment Chart, but only No33 in an All Formats Top 40 where half of the games are new PSP titles.
Really? Why do we care about fanboys with their littler gaming machines and corporate thuggery?
The PSP is just another time wasting device made by a company that saw a crowed market and said me too.
Disclaimer - I work for Sony :)
:(
The only longer-term UK figures I can find for DS say that they sold "over 200,000" units in the first six weeks. So it looks like the initial surge of sales is definitely in the PSP's favour. Whether this momentum will continue remains to be seen, but it's still an impressive launch.
Just wish I could afford one myself
Game dev and music blog
Four of my friends bought PSPs. Only one of them got a perfect PSP, the other three got dead pixels.
Whats annoying them is that they are getting conflicting information as to returning.
#1 Returned with no problem. Had another dead pixel got it returned again. Third is ok.
#2 Two dead pixels. Told by shop that they are allowed sell them with a certain amount of dead pixels. Refusing to replace.
#3 same as previous friend except they would exchange if more dead pixels appeared. (same shop).
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
If Europe mattered.
I hate to say it and I'm honestly not trying to sound like a troll, but Europe is a drop in the bucket compared to North America and Japan, both in terms of units sold and game creation (I know, I know, there are some talented European outfits, some of them make some great games, but they're hardly more than blips, if even that, outside of Europe).
As long as the DS dominates in Japan (which it is), Nintendo isn't worried and Sony is climbing uphill.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Are those figures for actual sales to end customers? According to this1UP article, Sony has an interesting sales counting methodology:
"As a rule, Sony prefers to release "sell-in" figures, or "units shipped" figures -- for instance, it recently announced that it "shipped" 70 million PlayStation 2s worldwide. What that means is that retailers have ordered and received 70 million PS2s, not that consumers have bought 70 million PS2s. Many of those 70 million PS2s have already been bought by consumers, and all of them may eventually be bought, but for now, the "shipped" figure is more impressive."
And also...
"Sony is going against type here. Though it's rounding off its sales figures, at least it is releasing genuine sales figures, a practice to which it is generally averse."
I like my DS and everyone I've shown it to has been impressed by it and enthusiastic about it (even my girlfriend bought one!)...but what my (non-gaming) friends have been talking about is the PSP, and in salivating in the same way my Apple friends were pre ipod launch. It also helps that at launch they have a wider (though not necc. better!) range of games than the DS has after 6 months here. If it wasn't for importing certain items I'd be less enthusiastic about the DS than I am. That will be sorted out by the end of November.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
...but then you would be working for Nintendo.
we all know the reason the Brits love it is that it's great for perving on pr0n in the dunny.
Justifying your PSP puchase by bashing N-Gage has become easier...
Eh, ScuttleMonkey?
......stop crippling it! The day Sony releases a firmware update allowing MP4 video playback from Sony memorystick i WILL buy one, until that day.............. maybe. I don't like buying deliberately crippled hardware, leaves a bad taste in ones mouth. It would be worth Sony's while, because i would even buy one of their hideously expensive 1GB Memorystick Pro's. Sort it out Sony.
Disclaimer: I own every modern console, and alot of older stuff too. I couldn't care less about sales figures, but thought this point was saillant enough to make.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
Though I must admit, I thought the PSP http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp/psp.html would not appeal to such a large audience
Steve Cline http://www.clines.org, http://www.objectbap.com
I was actually looking forward to the European release since I already own a PSP (a US one), bought for a reasonable price. I don't care about the movies (since I can make them myself from my DVD collection and region encoding mean they don't work) but I was looking forward to being able to buy games locally. I don't think I'll bother for a while - what's the point when I get the same game sent all the way from Honky Kong from Lik-Sang.com and still pay less, even if I did get caught for the duty?
Why would anyone be so eager to buy a PSP in this climate? I realise the PSP is a great console, but to be honest most of the current titles are pretty meh. Lumines is great but most of the others are so-so. I'm looking forward to seeing what GTA & PES looks like when they appear on the PSP but they're at least a month or two away.
The same goes for the XBox 360 BTW in case you think I'm rooting for that. Assuming it appears this side of Christmas, you just know early adopters are going to be raped for their zeal. In return they'll be rewarded with an overpriced box and a handful of games.
Firstly, in case anyone hasn't read that fine article, this is UK sales, not Euro-wide, worldwide or whatever.
But my main point is that they're so impressed with their stuffing of the software charts. Frankly, there's such a massive games drought here in the UK at the moment that I'm almost surprised it wasn't even more 'impressive'; they've got nothing to compete with.
Just as an example, the UK's biggest selling DS title (which people are always desperate to compare the PSP to) is Mario 64. Yes, a launch game. We don't have Nintendogs yet, nor Advance Wars. The last big PC game was Battlefield 2 months ago, and there's been nothing on PS2 worthwhile since God Of War. This was the 'Full Price' chart, so the budget release of the new update to Ghost Recon 2 on the XBox doesn't count, either.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
when the PSP was release here stateside - there was very little reason to purchase one - the launch games were mediocre and the hardware price was twice its nearest competitor.
fast forward to today, the game selection is much better and the movie support has been surprising as well. but thats not the true reason if i did purchase one.
its the availablity of homebrews. that and the huge amounts of pirated software thats available for it. its the same reason why the xbox sold well with the "computer power users"
300 bucks is easy to swallow if you know games can be gotten free....
It's nice for PSP owners since it somehow justifies their purchase (in bizarro fanboy land where they compare the sony's and Big-N's stock quotes instead of the quality and playability of games (no matter which system)).
I think PSP still is no competition for DS because it seems to be still necessary to throw 14-year-old-biased-games.slashdot.org-shit at the other handheld in the same article. Even though the other handheld obviously wasn't purchased by the submitter.
I mean what's the point of having games.slashdot.org when this childish crap still makes it to the front? And why are the articles passed by ScuttleMonkey always reading like Fud'ed-Yellow-Press-buzzword-shit?
Thank god, I never bothered to subscribe and pay money for this.
I honestly think no one can tell which handheld is going to win the wars. Personally, I'm tired of seeing Slashdot articles on it (not a flame to Slashdot! I rather see more news than a small flow of news).
I seriously think you all just need to wait 10 years, then add all the figures together and just finally reach a quick solution. PSP sells 4 million, DS sells 3 million. PSP wins, END OF STORY. (or visa versa... which ever you want to win).
the handheld market. PSP's clearly the best hardware in the segment, not to mention all the hacks for it out there. Once it becomes the de facto standard handheld there will be more games, software and movies for it at lower prices.
Tell friends #2 and #3 to go back to the shop and discuss the Sale Of Goods Act with regards to Merchandising Quality. Tell the shop that they're not allowed sell them with a certain amount of dead pixels by law. That normally makes them think again. If it doesn't try Citizens Advice or even a solicitor.
If enough people do this then shoddy salesmen will get the message
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Does the internet not exist? Can you not see the horrible games lineup?
Anyone can see: PSP looks neat, DS looks like a big piece of shit. PSP sticks to the tried and tested formula, DS tries to be clever. PSP just came out and is the new hotness, DS is about as hot as the N-GAGe SideTalker(tm). PSP is an all-round PDA designed for gaming, DS is for gaming nerds. PSP is naturally sexy, DS looks so shit they have to stretch out an entire advertising campaign based on a dirty joke that's just getting older every day. Without even getting into the technical comparison, all I can say is that the DS will be remembered as that touch-me thing that died because it was a gimmick and games had to be specially written for it while the PSP will be remembered as the portable playstation with grand theft auto.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This is wonderful news for fans of the Sony handheld,
You mean wonderful news for Sony, right? How great can it be for a Sony fan to hear this "news?"
and it certainly quiets many of the naysayers who have been pointing to the success of the DS sales compared to the PSP.
Well, up until Sept. 1 in the UK, domestic/non-imported sales for the DS over those of the PSP were infinite. If you were talking internationally, 200,000 additional PSP units sold thanks to the eagerly anticipated UK launch is a drop in the bucket so far.
And what else exactly were you hearing from the "naysayers?" I didn't hear any Nintendo fanboys claiming the UK wouldn't bust a nut over the PSP when it was finally released, after the almost one-year-long blueball session they've gone through relative to the rest of the world. All I heard was that, until that point, the DS had been the best hardware launch the UK had seen, along with the ubiquitous whining here and elsewhere from Europeans about being treated like third-class citizens by Sony. Well, here's your bowl of Sony dog food boys, you better come running because you look a little starved.
So, a translation of your post: "I know you Nintendo guys never said anything, but I feel oppressed by _something_, so neener neener neener just in case."
I am a UK citizen (could be worse)
I don't get why everyone is buying these with the two most huge problems.
1. The left button not being aligned with its underneath pressure pad thing.
2. The dead pixels. If all the flat panel manufactures have generally now sorted this out by now. Dead pixels are now very rare for new 17" 19" monitors. the psp must have the most crap quality components when balencing amount of dead pixels / overall pixels / units
now along with my history of Sony hardware dying well before i would have reasonably expected with no obvious hardware flaws, the psp's 2 fatal points nail the coffin shut as to my choice buying one, i'm amazed how many people fork out cash for such crappy designed hardware. Not sure if i feel pity for people who buy this junk
No personal discount on the PSP for Sony employees? Or sony really pays you little, you happen to be a musician with a new record deal?
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I have both the PSP and the DS. The only good game for either playform is Super Mario 64 DS. Go figure.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
"Does this solidify Sony's position in the handheld market with a firm foot in the door?"
more like a firm foot to the balls...-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
When I was in local retail shop I noticed software from x-oom.com http://www-x-oom.com/. They have product called X-OOM Movies on PSP.
Thought I really don't see no reason to watch movies regulary on PSP, especially when you have to convert them to it... Watching regular shows and news would be a different beast. If PSP could download video podcast to it, then.. wou. I would buy it.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
"NO! No! No! No!"
I'd like to run some other player on it so that I could watch my own..
"NO!"
O-okay, I-I guess I'll buy it then..
"Good boy! Let's have your money, NOW!"
Uh.. S-So could I play this fun solitaire that I have on my PC?
"NO! Begone pest but not before you've bought this EA MadFuckken 2006 Ultra Turbo!"
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Have you SEEN our DS gameslist?
Once again, the UK gets shafted by Nintendo and 3rd party publishers and has to wait months to get the games which people in the US enjoy.
The DS ran away with the lead in the US because it had a damn good lineup of games (right now both Nintendogs and Advance Wars DS are selling strong). Here in the UK we haven't even had Meteos.
All we're enjoying is a lengthy break before the killer apps get here and I've got to say it doth royally suck. The PSP's launch titles in the US were better than the DS but in subsequent months the DS got its excellent games into circulation and started to pick up momentum.
What we're seeing in the UK is what happens when licensing and bureaucratic publishing houses delay the launch of games in Europe months after their release in the US. It's not normally noticeable for the companies concerned but at a time like this it's the games released soon after launch that are critical to a console's success.
I'm a mac user so I'm kind of used to being treated like a 2nd class citizen for gaming (except for games produced by ID and Blizzard) but if Nintendo would like to know why their arguably superior system with its stellar lineup in the US is getting pounded here, they might want to look at the utter disgrace that passes for cross-continental licensing and distribution.
(The author is currently sitting on his ass waiting for Advance Wars DS, Nintendogs, Meteos and a variety of other games already out in the US to be released in the UK)
...the kids need something to watch all the movies they download on.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
No, I don't think so.
http://www.walkingtaco.com
The PSP is more 'lickable' than DS: the promise of better graphics, movies everywhere, superior sound, hackable etc make it a better choice.
That's irrelevant though to the fact that DS games are more fun, simply because Nintendo is better at making games.
French newspaper "Le monde" published a story today that the PSP sold 250,000 so far, and that shops are restocking shelves several times a day.
--
Atlantis, smash hit puzzle game for mac & pc: http://www.funpause.com/
The size of the market and number of consoles sold has already been covered, but here's another free clue for you: not only does the EU produce more games than the USA, but the UK alone produces more games. So the drop in the bucket in game creation is the USA. _You_ are the folks which aren't too creative in the gaming arena.
Want to know some games that helped sell the USA-made XBox? KOTOR and Jade Empire, made by Bioware, a company from Canada. Fable, made by Lionhead, a company from the UK.
You know, here's some friendly advice: you're not even doing the USA any favour by displaying such massive ignorance. I'm sure most Americans are actually intelligent people. The problem is that what we from the rest of the world see is the "patriotic" ignorant rednecks, spouting such idiocies online.
I don't know what it is about the USA and retards spewing their mouth all over the Internet. As I've said, I assume there must be just as many percent retards as everywhere else. The difference that the USA has _loud_ retards. They just _have_ to post something online that isn't just offensive to the rest of the world, but is utterly stupid and uninformed too.
So here's the friendly advice: if you're that patriotic and proud of your country, stop making it look bad online. Read some actual information before spewing such idiocies on an open forum.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sigh... I'll never understand why and how record sales of damn non-networked product should make me happy beyond the obvious fact that decent sales ensures support, which is almost guaranteed anyway by legal obligations and the size of Sony corp.
Fanboys! Sigh...
"So here's the friendly advice: if you're that patriotic and proud of your country, stop making it look bad online. "
I agree, because
(a) An AC on slashdot shapes world opinion
(b) your personal opinion is the most important thing that matters to the typical slashdotter.
Even the Dutch are laughing at you right now.
You can't consider the EU as a single market for games (not consoles, I'm only talking about games) because you simply can't sell a single product across the whole EU like you can across all the US or Japan.
The UK usually gets the US version localized by converting NTSC->PAL and some Cookie->Biscuit, Gasoline->Petrol language/spelling conversions. Simple stuff really. For the rest of Europe, you have to completely translate and localize a whole bunch of different versions:
Germany - Translate everything into German!
France - Translate everything into French!
Spain - Translate everything into Spanish!
Italy - Translate everything into Italian!
And those are just the next biggest four markets. Now you can try to use these five to market to the rest of the EU (given that many people speak one of them as a second language), but to truly tap into the whole potential of the EU you would also need to translate and localize into all the official languages: people are simply more likly to buy it if it is in their native language. That adds: Danish, Greek, Dutch, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Czech, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak and Slovene.
Keep in mind: all that translating is difficult, expensive, time consuming work, and given the different markets in different countries, the popularity of a given game might vary from hit to zilch, which presents a bigger risk in releasing a version for each country.
Alternatively, Europe-launch games could all be released in English ONLY, and things would be simplified immensely.
/Hurrah for American Hegemony!
//Up WAY to late
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
It's worth bearing in mind that most games outlets in the UK had been taking PSP preorders for 6 months or more, making the number of units sold a whole lot less impressive. Also, just about nowhere were selling unbundled PSPs, so the game sales figures are also less impressive - how many people buying a PSP ended up with a game they didn't actually want?
I bought a PSP last saturday. It is great for watching videos and surfing the internet (you can even vandalize Wikipedia with it), but there are still better games out for the DS.
Many games just need the magic of the touch screen and the high vertical resolution of the DS. That little nub the psp has is pathetic for controling stuff.
Also lexar makes crap memory sticks so avoid.
So I own two DSs and one PSP, Ill keep the PSP for media but someone will have to bring out more innovative games for PSP before itbecomes my primary gaming machine.
Do you play with your Willy?
Sure, the total size of the EU's GDP is comparable but what percent of that GDP is devoted to gaming? I'll bet it's nothing like Japan.
Nothing is like Japan. Nothing.
At last where video game are concerned. You think they save the EU for last cause it is their best market? Heck, this isn't even the EU, this is just the UK, right?
Or to put it differently: Do you think Sony and Nintendo are going to lend more weight to sales figures in Japan, USA or the EU?
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
"However, the CONTROLS for the DS are vastly superiour. How can you compare an analog stick with a complete touchscreen?"
I can compare them quite easily, and actually like the gamepad controls more.
E.g., because I don't need to switch focus all the time between the main screen and a gimmick touch-screen to play a game, I can just look at and concentrate on the main screen. I find it helps with suspension of disbelief a _lot_.
E.g., I also find holding a gamepad to be more comfortable than Nintendo's design.
E.g., best of all: I don't have to put up with games that were never designed for a stylus to start with, but added some retarded "draw a symbol now quick" gimmick, just for gimmick's sake. (And presumably also because some marketroid at Nintendo told them to.)
The fact is, the games I play don't need a stylus (nor a mouse.) Car racing games, for example, work with a thumbstick far better than with a second touch-screen gimmick. Jump-and-run games (a la Castlevania), ditto, just need directions and a jump button. (Adding some "quick, switch your eyes to the other screen and draw some retarded symbol" gimmick is just that: a gimmick I could easily do without. Happily too.)
Then again, I don't play FPS much, and definitely not on a portable. Dunno, maybe DS's design is any good for those. I wouldn't know or care. For everything else, no thanks, I'll take a normal gamepad instead.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I have a Sony 14" Tv from 1991 that is still going strong.
I had it just to use my Amiga 500, now it is used for gamecube.
And just for the record I hate Sony for killing the Saturn and Dreamcast and for high priced incompatable hardware and lack of imaginative games.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
Actually, this device WANTS more than games. There's a lot of potential here for all kinds of third party/community apps. Granted, text input is by way of an onscreen "keyboard" which is more like a phone's pad than anything, but with features like WiFi and a browser there are all kinds of things that could be done from the community if Sony would release to the public a (legal, approved) SDK for it.
A couple of things could be done to improve the unit itself, number one being the addition of a larger (in GB, not dimension) hard drive, making some of the buttons more sturdy feeling (R1 and L1 both feel like they could fall right out of the unit) and some other minor things.
R(k)
I tried to find the PSP on Sony's Dutch website. That didn't even have a link or anything about it on the homepage. So I clicked Playstation. From there I could click on the PSP weblink, and had to wait forever for the website to load,just to be able to click my language of choice. And then I again had to wait forever for the website to load (I have a 1 Mb/s broadband connection).
:-)
When will those stupid marketing people understand that I want information, not a shitload of crappy graphics and forever load times? I only wanted to know what the resolution of the PSP is, because it looks to me this might be a perfect replacement for a Palm or even a real laptop. But I gave up when I was at 50% download, so I guess I'll never know...
-- Cheers!
By Konami's soccer he means Pro-Evolution Soccer or, in Japan, Winning Eleven.
Most people I know prefer it to FIFA. Yeah I'm in Europe.
status symbol.
I heard this from a helpful EB employee.
Bring the thing back, and say it has battery problems. A: They'll be required to return it, as battery problems are a valid reason to exchange a PSP, and B: It takes too bloody long to test, so nobody tests them.
I don't think anyone is happy selling a substandard screen, especially not with the hype around how super the screen is. Just tell the people at the store that the battery doesn't hold a charge, and that you'd like another one. Try to get one you can test first "just to make sure." Used PSP's are great for this, if the store has any.
The ______ Agenda
Not when you realize that this is the number of units sold to retailers, not customers.
The GameCube was in second place until some time in 2004.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
1) Yes, the DS looks cheaper, primarily because it is almost 50% cheaper
2) Watching movies on the PSP is the best part, but the movies cost more than DVD's, there is no rental market for them, and you can't copy them making UMD movies a poor bargain. Oh, there aren't many of them, either. Maybe if sony drops the price of UMD movies to $7, they'll catch on.
3) The screen is too small to watch unless you're 3 away. Perhaps in Japan this is a normal size of an apartment, and you've given us a really cute story that you think proves your point.
4) The games really are crap. I own a PSP, and there's not a game that's worth the $40-50 they want. Ridge Racer? Please! That comes out for every console. Hard to get excited about the umpteeth version.
Look the PSP is fine, but I own one and it sits in a drawer. I have no use for it. Its hype. Smoke and mirrors. I feel for it, but its still hype.
If they don't follow up with more interesting games then the foot may be planted firmly in the mouth. I bought a PSP a couple of weeks ago and so far I'm pretty happy with it playing Lumines, Wipeout Pure, and tooling around with the web browser, but I really want to see some really interesting stuff before the year is out. What I'd really like to see in the near term is Flash support for the browser which would suddenly make thousands of web games potentially playable on the PSP. I wonder if Sony is actually afraid of that?
In any case, it looks like the UK launch has gone pretty well for Sony. But they'd better not rest because quite honestly, the DS has the better stable of games right now.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Well I have been often teased as such by my friends. I live in Canada and mostly, I tend to buy Sony because they have this Macish (making up words here hope it make sense) style to them. Very slick, very intiutive.
So, of course being a geek at heart, I went to buy a handheld. And after a bit of deliberation between DS and PSP, I was blown away by the PSP graphics and bought it. This is in the early days of PSP, when it was still hot off the press and very few people actually knew anything constructing about it and much about it was speculations.
So why am I feeling ripped off and let down:
1) since release of PSP, I have Hotshot Golf (ps1 caliber game at best.. but fun to play for a bit), Untold Legend (yet another ps1 caliber game completely linear, idiotically simple), Need for Speed (this existed in the arcade from my 2nd year university days) and Dynesty Warriors (ps2 game, choppy as hell, most frustrating).
So where are the GAMES??? I think there is 3 or 4 game available that I couldn't get myself to spend the money on. I think I have wasted enough on the crap I already bought. Why is a Sony game device released with out any RPG??? Hello, Finaly Fantasy?? NO I don't want to be a fucken ghost and walk around town.
2) What's with the crippled hardware??? WHY the hell would Sony do this?? Well I know why, because they want to code up the UMD for their god aweful movies that they are releasing all over the world with their fancy DRM. Anyone with more than 1 brain cell would realize that these movies are low quality in graphics and in sound and COSTS more than an actual DVD. And why make this cheap excuses for DVDs so bloody expensive?? DRM cost?? Why bother?? Who in their right mind will rip these crappy videos when they can do they can do ACTUAL DVDs?? Why region code in the first place?? it's a bloody hand held... Some corporate weenie needs to be smacked them hung from his/her finger nails (or made to live his/her mother-in-law for an year).
3) Where are my bloody games?? I think I said that already.. Why is every bloody update designed to cripple my PSP even more??
I know DRM is here to stay and it's the corporate mantra for salvation. I am just feeling tired of geting ripped off no apparent reason and paying good money for it (other than corporate greed and exclusivness).
I long for some new games...
--- -a- "I'd love to change the world, but it'd be easier if the universe exposed its API."
It seems logical to me that with more users of a particular platform, more developers will come into the market and produce more games for that platform. Not to mention more accessories, more competition that may result in prices being brought down, etc.
If you have a Sony PSP, then you'd probably be happy about this.
Personally, I don't have a handheld game system, but if I do get one it will probably be a Game Boy Advance SP, mostly so I can play all of the old nintendo games that have been released on it and relive my youth.
Just wait until Nintendogs is released in the UK and causes massive DS sales. I have a feeling the naysayers will continue to say "nay."
"Sufferin' succotash."
This all ignores a real problem- that sources (such as News Corp's rag) had been. for a long while, actively whoring the psp and deriding the ds. In one cares there was a "comparison" when the psp wasn't out in *any* market.
Unsurprisingly, I believe the psp got a 9 or somesuch.
Then again, this IS the land of Edge....
I'm quite sure ONE dead pixel would be enough for Nintendo to replace it, but does anyone actually know?
Ok first of all, why so many people bother to comment: "yeah this sets Sony with a door in the balls/thumbs/head etc) yeah I get the joke but unfortunately it's wrong, you are talking about SONY remember? the guys who made the PS2 and the coming PS3? a foot in the door? these guys have their entire body apendeages, relatives and dead corpses stucked in the door!
Second, the PSP isnt going anywhere, this is SONY we are talking about (not SEGA) even if they had released a handheld as bad as the N-gage (which is definetily not the case) they would still figure out a way to market it and make a buck. You think their handheld project is going under just because is selling a percenteage less than its direct competitor? (even NOKIA is still pulling out NGAGE's as we speak)
Third: Yes Nintendo DS is beating the PSP, why? for starters because its a whole lot CHEAPER. The PSP is as expensive as a home console so is _not logical_ to believe is going to get MORE sales as a system 1/3 of the price. Also the DS has a lot more titles yes, unfortunately most of them were ripped off directly from the GBA how many DS games are actually DS titles and not GBA ports ? 5? maybe 10?
Fourth: you are forgetting a small detail, this is just the first generation of the PSP. Sony eventually will DROP the PSP price, eventually more developers (and users) will adopt the PSP and more and BETTER GAMES will be released for it (GTA, GOD OF WAR, GT4, and TEKKEN are coming to it for starters), We havent seen nothing guys, this party is just getting started.
BTW Half of the industry is completely astounded by Sony not pushing the PSP further THIS year, but you can be sure Sony has a card under their sleave for it. (most analysts predict sony will show their PSP hand next year during the PS3 release )
p.s. Why are you guys still complaining about "dead pixels"? I heard those can be fixed by simply playing a small video that "wakes up" the dead pixels. the video is around the web, google it.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
"I find it funny how Sony are trying to soften the problem by calling them 'stuck pixels' rather than dead. Almost like you could give 'em a little nudge and they'd start working again!"
They're not dead, they're... stunned. Those PSP pixels stun easily. Give 'et a rest and it will come right back! Remarkable things, those PSP pixels. Beautiful colors!
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
People are buying the PSP so they can hack emulators on it, not play UMD games and movies. :P
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The reason why many games are delayed going into (E) from (U) or (J) is because to sell in most (or all) countries in (E) it must first be translated to 5 different languages, which takes time.
I hope sony is not proud of any more consoles sold than the DS. Because the DS is not the primary handheld of Nintendo. And because psp have probably a 4 years lifespam its gonna get trashed when the new GameBoy come into the game.
//WR
ZOMG WHO CRES ABOUT TEH UK!??!?!111
/kidding....
MOR LIK...YUKCY ROLFOAMALFMAO
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
If I had absolutely no knowledge of the specific games that had come out for two different consoles, but knew that one had 10 games available and one had 100 then I would almost certainly go for the one with 100. But this is not the case with the PSP.
It most certainly is. If you buy a Nintendo DS at 130 USD and a portable DVD player at 120 USD (prices checked today at Wal-Mart), you get a selection of over 10 times more compatible games (GBA and Nintendo DS platforms) and possibly over 20 times more compatible Hollywood movies (DVD Video) than you'd get for the PSP at 250 USD.
What I'd really like to see in the near term is Flash support for the browser which would suddenly make thousands of web games potentially playable on the PSP. I wonder if Sony is actually afraid of that?
Macromedia Flash technology looks more proprietary than Java technology. Can the PSP run Java applets?
not only is loading not bad on the PSP
Then why were both Midnight Club and Need For Speed for PSP so poorly engineered? I've read one report of two minutes from power switch to gameplay and another report of 1:10 to load a track that takes 2:30 to play. And if you don't like any of the genres that have well-made PSP titles, then all the time you spend waiting for a genre to become represented on the PSP is in a sense just as bad as loading time.
I owned a PSP (for Lumines)
Other people don't have to. The luminous game is now on GBA.
So I sold my PSP. The DS I'll never sell.
Did you try buying a GBA flash card with the money that you got, so that you can play GBA homebrew?
MPEG-4 videos played from Memory Stick Duo media are decoded at half the PSP's native resolution and stretched to fill the screen. This 240x136 pixel playback is not much better than the 240x160 pixels you get on a GBA Movie Player, and the GBA MP uses cheaper CompactFlash media to boot.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050907/1311206_F.sh tml
I only wanted to know what the resolution of the PSP is, because it looks to me this might be a perfect replacement for a Palm or even a real laptop.
The screen has 480x272 pixels, but the system as sold at retail in September 2005 runs firmware 1.51 or later, which is not compatible with anything except those programs published or otherwise specifically authorized by Sony, so you're not going to be able to take advantage of anything like the Windows, Mac, or Linux freeware scene.
People are buying the PSP so they can hack emulators on it
All PSPs sold new this month have version 1.51 or newer firmware, which doesn't work with emulators because Sony hasn't signed any emulators and doesn't appear to intend to do so. Because the downgrader isn't stable yet, the only way to get a 1.50 PSP is to buy a used Japanese or North American unit.
The "other" popular handheld for both new commercial games and classic system emulation is Nintendo DS. All versions except the "iQue DS" version (sold only in China) and the one in a red chassis (sold only in Japan) work with the most popular hack.
Wow, there are still people that aren't familiar with ripping DVD's?
You're right that there are still people that aren't familiar with an operation performed by software that was pulled from the market because it was ruled illegal. Expect similar judicial behavior in other countries that have adopted the WIPO Copyright Directive. Heck, in the UK and Australia, there hasn't even been a court decision clearly upholding the right to use a VCR or DVR to time-shift copyrighted television programs.
Besides, a lot of people can afford $25 at a time for each UMD Video title more easily than $100 at a time for a 1 GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. Affordability of an individual "blade" in the Gillette business model is the same thing that coaxes people into buying a $50 inkjet printer rather than a $500 color laser printer.
That is probably the best reason for why the GC widely receives less support than the PS2 or Xbox. But another major issue related to that is that Nintendo still charges higher royalties than the other two. They've actually lowered their royalty rate since the GC's launch, but third parties will still make less money on a GC title than on a PS2 or Xbox title (assuming retail price is the same, which 99% of the time is the case).
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
The pixels aren't a problem. Why? Because they aren't dead. Stuck pixels are white and they can be fixed by a program. It does indeed work. Dead ones are dead, black, and can't be fixed. Besides, a few little dots never ruined a game. You can only see them in the menu or on a black screen. The battery life is also surprisingly good. Mine lasts about 6 hours or so. If it gets low I plug it in to recharge. You never have to change the batteries(though I still do enjoy my GBA). I honestly thought when I first saw it that it was a waste of money. Then my fiance got it and I tried his. I found it to be really enjoyable. The screen itself is fantastic(probably why I never put much thought into the DS). I don't care for small screens and the PSP has a brilliant one. The fact I can play my favorite games on it too helps(like Chrono Trigger). It's definitely not for a smaller child, but for the older demographic it's great. Not everyone is expected to like it but I failure it is not.
just got a psp and i'm lodin it up with cool stuff. i'm luvin all the free wallpaper out there. here's some of the sites i'm using -- can u add more?? (1) http://www.plasmadesign.co.uk/PSP.htm (2) http://www.sumopop.com/ (3) http://www.pspwallpapers.com/