PSP price revealed? 33.000yen

TTP said:
It's a new category of videogamer the one that Sony is (also) aiming at with the PSP: the videogamer that would like to play games, but cannot cos is out of the house for most of the day (say at university or at work).
Yea, but how long can they play with that battery life ;)

Son of Gozillda said:
Anyways, there's no way it's $300. I'd say $250, but I also expect DS at $100-130.
Silly SoG, DS is $150.
 
$300 = no sale

I can buy a ps2 plus 3 games w/ that

and if the battery life is truly short, I might as well be playing a ps2 anyway
 
No sale. It's like buying a new console, with memory cards all over again. Not to mention tiny ass screen, battery life, etc.

No way.
 
Catchpenny said:
No, there's a huge difference between $200 and $300. People respond a lot more to a drop in the highest place value of a price. Sony won't see many more sales at $250.

Besides, they shouldn't have any problems selling this for the first few months. Early adopters aren't going to be in short supply for a snazzy looking gaming device from Sony. So even if Sony is comfortable with launching at $250 in America, they would likely hold off for a while, until the holiday season.

Dude, are you kidding me?
There is a huge difference between $249 and $299. A $300 portable gaming system in this country isn't an attractive price.
A PS2, Xbox, and Cube can be bought for about the same price.

If it's $300 in Japan there's little doubt in my mind it'll be $250 here.
 
It's just too expensive, considering it's a closed system.

I still don't know how in the heavens they plan to move forward with movie distribution with the UMD format. Having to pay twice for a movie just doesn't seem reasonable at all, and I'm certain the majority will shun it.
 
I can't see myself paying that much for a handheld. Even one as cool and as powerful as this one. I'll wait til it drops to around $200 or below.
 
Pulling out an ipod and listening to music is cool, pulling out an handheld to play games outside is not. The only market I see for dedicated handheld gaming are kids.
 
300 bucks?? rofl

As an unbiased observer.. I call FLOP

bellyflop.jpg
 
Kamille said:
I can't see myself paying that much for a handheld. Even one as cool and as powerful as this one. I'll wait til it drops to around $200 or below.

then what happens after they make that drop?

When did the ps2 get it's first sales surge? Wasn't it the price drop to $199?
 
thorns said:
Pulling out an ipod and listening to music is cool, pulling out an handheld to play games outside is not. The only market I see for dedicated handheld gaming are kids.

The people I see playing with their cell-phones and GBA SP at college are ghosts now ?!?
 
$300 won't fly. It's frickin' TWICE the DS price. I wouldn't bother discussing this until it's official. (I predict a maximum price of $250)
 
I mean the year and quarter it sold the most units.

Holiday 2001?

Was that they slashed the price to $199 USD? Cause thats when I (and I'm sure many others) bought thei ps2 for the first time.
 
Panajev2001a said:
The people I see playing with their cell-phones and GBA SP at college are ghosts now ?!?

eh playing with cell phones is OK, but i've seen 0 people in my university that is older than 18 and that plays with GBA SP outside.
 
thorns said:
eh playing with cell phones is OK, but i've seen 0 people in my university that is older than 18 and that plays with GBA SP outside.

...do you have alot of people under 18 at your university?
 
not a mainstream pricepoint. they really shot themselves on the foot by going with the UMD format. otherwise ppl would buy at that price consdering the feasibility to use the device as an MP3 player/data stoarge/transfer unit as well as a gaming platform. and to not support the MP3 format itself is just idiotic.
hardcore will eat it up, price will drop after a year and it will start selling a lot more.
 
neptunes said:
I mean the year and quarter it sold the most units.

Holiday 2001?

Was that they slashed the price to $199 USD? Cause thats when I (and I'm sure many others) bought thei ps2 for the first time.
They slashed to $199 May 2002. Looks like PS2's biggest month/quarter would be late 2002, at least by US numbers.

October: 535,289
November: 1,318,000
December: 2,733,000
Total: 4586289
 
I think it will ultimately get priced at less than $300.

This announcement/leak/whatever is clearly a trial baloon to gauge public reaction. If they had decided on that price point, it would have been announced by Kutaragi at the press con yesterday, not in a remark by some mid-level manager in Europe.
 
The more I think about it, the more it actually makes sense.

It's an extremely powerful portable with a lot of functionality. Hardcore early adopters will probably shell out this much for it, and the hardware will probably last a while because it's so powerful... meaning plenty of time for people to pick it up at a later date, when it's more affordable.

To me anyway, for the first time, I get the feeling they're trying to make their own market/money rather than take Gameboy's.

Nintendo said all along NDS wasn't to compete with PSP, and it looks like Sony agrees. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Nintendo DS price drop to expand the price gulf in the coming Spring either. Another thought: I hope this doesn't set a precedent for new handhelds. Will Nintendo release an overly expensive GBA2?
 
when the PSP launches, and you've seen the games, and have the battery life finally known, I'm going to have a thread called "hands up all those who shat on PSP because it was 'expensive' but bought one anyway?"

I like how so many of you are making statements about how $300 is not an attractive price point, like its relevant for the entire US economy. Sure, it might not be for you, but there is someone who will pay that, otherwise Sony wouldn't price it like that (if they do)
They've got their consumer panels and sliding scales of volume Vs price.

If they can sell enough early on to get word of mouth, and start to recoup some development money, then they will. Then drop the price.

Granted though, a lot of these 'leaks' sound like when governments do the same to judge how a tricky policy might go down.
 
It's not a matter of selling it to "some one". It's a matter of them selling it to enough people for it to make an impact. I find that with portable gaming systems, regardless of their supposed power, people are not willing to spend quite as much as they would with a home unit. I've never really understood why, since portables are completely standalone, but most everyone I know seems to have zero interest in a portable that expensive.

It remains to be seen, either way. No one can say for sure. If the games are good enough and the hardware decent, I'll get one eventually.
 
I'm actually thinking PSP might come in at $249.99 US now thanks to DS pressure. $299.99 is still fairly likely though if they plan on releasing at all close to Japan (though I'm thinking PSP might delay into summer/fall 2006 for western markets too).
 
jarrod said:
I'm actually thinking PSP might come in at $249.99 US now thanks to DS pressure. $299.99 is still fairly likely though if they plan on releasing at all close to Japan (though I'm thinking PSP might delay into summer/fall 2006 for western markets too).
Please tell me you meant 2005. O_O

Looking at the general responses to PSP and DS pricing, I'm not so sure its a matter of the DS pricing putting pressure on the PSP but rather just this prevailing sentiment that portable gaming should somehow be cheaper than the "equivalence" in set-top gaming.

Of course, I also think there's a world of people out there who haven't been conditioned this same way, so it's really a question of who's feedback Sony hears more of and weighs more heavily in the success of the PSP.
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
The US PSP will not cost $300. Sony isn't stupid.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think they wont either. Like jarrod said, they may want to be aiming for $250. However, people at Sony have said again and again that they will not be competing with Nintendo's Game Boy. The Playstation brand is so strong that even if it was to be released at 33000 yen or $300 initially, it should sell to the diehard fans (people even bought the N-Gage at that price, and it had several other features plus better graphics to boot).
 
"Hopefully, they just port the good PSP games to the PS2 & be done with all this nonsense..."

i'd assume most games devs would make the games as portable as possible and do exactly this.
 
kaching said:
Please tell me you meant 2005. O_O
Ooops, yeah.


kaching said:
Looking at the general responses to PSP and DS pricing, I'm not so sure its a matter of the DS pricing putting pressure on the PSP but rather just this prevailing sentiment that portable gaming should somehow be cheaper than the "equivalence" in set-top gaming.

Of course, I also think there's a world of people out there who haven't been conditioned this same way, so it's really a question of who's feedback Sony hears more of and weighs more heavily in the success of the PSP.
I dunno... having the (market leading) competition at half your pricetag would be a big incentive to drop I'd say... prevailing sentiments or not. ;)
 
One point about the iPod and the PSP...

While the iPod does have the "cute", "status", and "geek" aspects going for it, those weren't the only reasons the iPod has sold as well as it has. The iPod has one very practical feature which puts it far apart from most other MP3 players on the market.

The iPod can hold an entire music collection.

I think this is an aspect of the iPod which folks have been overlooking when comparing it to the PSP. The iPod succeeded by offering something no one MP3 player did, but I don't see the PSP any sort of special advantage over the competitors (DS and GBA). True, now that the iPod is popular, folks are buying it for a myriad of reasons... but would it have ever taken off if it weren't for the amazing storage capacity?
 
jarrod said:
I dunno... having the (market leading) competition at half your pricetag would be a big incentive to drop I'd say... prevailing sentiments or not. ;)
Well, considering that prevailing sentiment for the DS isn't resoundingly in favor of its pricepoint either, I'd say the real market leading competition is obviously still the GBA SP, which Sony of course never had any plans to compete on direct footing with pricewise. That's why I'm saying I don't think the DS is a real factor. I think it has more to do with precedent that Nintendo had already established prior to the DS which the DS itself actually deviates from.
 
DavidDayton said:
One point about the iPod and the PSP...

While the iPod does have the "cute", "status", and "geek" aspects going for it, those weren't the only reasons the iPod has sold as well as it has. The iPod has one very practical feature which puts it far apart from most other MP3 players on the market.

The iPod can hold an entire music collection.

I think this is an aspect of the iPod which folks have been overlooking when comparing it to the PSP. The iPod succeeded by offering something no one MP3 player did, but I don't see the PSP any sort of special advantage over the competitors (DS and GBA). True, now that the iPod is popular, folks are buying it for a myriad of reasons... but would it have ever taken off if it weren't for the amazing storage capacity?

The PSP can offer an experience on par with current-gen home consoles. That's a ridiculous jump over the last major handheld that was released.

I think that the fact that Sony chose to build a $300 handheld instead of a $150 one will pay dividends come two years from now when there have been a couple of pricedrops and it is priced to move. Who wouldn't want a PSP at mass market pricing?
 
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