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Beginning March 22nd, the Sony PSP will be available in the United States at $199.99, a full fifty bucks lower than the initial launch price. This isn't a true price drop, however, because now the PSP is no longer bundled with a mandatory 32MB memory stick, carrying case, wristband, and earphones.

Sony's strategy here seems obvoius - reduce the PSP's price tag at little cost to themselves (consumers are estimated to save less than $5 overall if they were to buy each of the formerly prepackaged accessories seperately), but hopefully increase sales of their handheld to make it more competitive with the ludicrously popular Nintendo DS. Sure, it isn't much of a strategy, but the PSP needs all the help it can get.

Source: NForcer, via Digg.com

This post has been edited by laszlow on 21st March 2006 00:47

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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Huh. I thought that the PSP *cough*emulator machine*cough* was popular anyway. Although it should be obvious that DS has much more quality games for it.

Meh. Doesn't seem like that big of a price drop.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Let's not forget that retail prices are always higher than the real prices (hey, retaillers have to turn in a profit too; they're not a charity organization and the people working the registers don't work for free.) So Sony might actually be making money off of this deal.

Frankly, it seems like a good deal to me anyhow. The only thing I can see myself needing would be the memory stick. But let's face it: what's $50? Less than half a day's salary? Frankly, I don't have much of a real opinion on this because I don't have time for these things anymore and I'm not one of the many teens with either a part-time job or relying on their parents for money, so a $50 drop in the price doesn't phase me much...

Meh, maybe if some long-lasting old-school game comes out.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

The only one of those things of any value is the carrying case. If you actually want to be able to do anything with the PSP other than play the games you can buy for it, you need a much larger memory card. A carrying case is important, though, because the thing is as fragile as a handheld system can get.

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Hip-Hop QOTW:

"Yeah, where I'ma start it at, look I'ma part of that
Downtown Philly where it's realer than a heart attack
It wasn't really that ill until the start of crack
Now it's a body caught every night on the Almanac"

"Game Theory"
The Roots

I guess it depends what you plan on doing with it... Personally, I'd never bring a handheld system anywhere. I wouldn't have any use for it (*hands cue stick* "Hey dude, you take this shot for me. I have to get THE POWER UP!!!! =) ") I heard a lot of stuff about its screen scratching easily though, so I figure at least some kind of protective cover would be necessary... >"<

The headphones are a waste of money, though. I'm sure everyone here has a decent pair of headphones somewhere. Nothing beats playing with $75 KOSS headphones.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quite honestly, I don't think I'd use it for anything but gaming so all I'd need is the memory stick and maybe the carrying case but I don't really have anywhere else to play the thing other than home. My breaks aren't long enough at work for playing, not even GBA games. I probably wouldn't plunk down for any movies either because I don't have a need for movies on the go. Again with the short work breaks. I wouldn't even need it for mp3s because I have an iPod.

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Elena Indurain

Currently Playing: Suikoden II

Quote (Zeromus_X @ 20th March 2006 20:28)

PSP *cough*emulator machine*cough*

If that were really the case, I'd have one by now. As far as I can tell (and, please, correct me if I'm wrong), only early versions of the PSP firmware allowed any amount of hacking and emulator installing, and playing emulated games took a fair degree of know-how, anyway. If I could use a PSP to play SNES games, it would be worth it to be to buy one without the price drop.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Havn't been a fan of handhelds in ages, bt once the price drops into the 150's I guess THEN I'll get one. Doesn't seem like a price drop to me, but hey you get $5O off, or is it $5, well something's something!!

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

Quote (karasuman @ 21st March 2006 00:14)

Quote (Zeromus_X @ 20th March 2006 20:28)

PSP *cough*emulator machine*cough*

If that were really the case, I'd have one by now. As far as I can tell (and, please, correct me if I'm wrong), only early versions of the PSP firmware allowed any amount of hacking and emulator installing, and playing emulated games took a fair degree of know-how, anyway. If I could use a PSP to play SNES games, it would be worth it to be to buy one without the price drop.

Yeah, I heard it was only the earlier versions. No clue if you can 'downgrade' the PSP though. I thought Sony was really against it anyway.

Don't mind me, I love making fun of it for that

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Quote (Zeromus_X @ 21st March 2006 01:28)

Huh. I thought that the PSP *cough*emulator machine*cough* was popular anyway. Although it should be obvious that DS has much more quality games for it.

Meh. Doesn't seem like that big of a price drop.

I've regarded the PSP to be the XBox to the DS' Playstation 2. And personally, I feel the DS and PSP both use cheap gimmicks as selling points. But the DS also has one bit of innovation. PSP is simply just a portable playstation, and all the rich kids who would want one probably have a PS2 in the back of daddy's hummer.

Well, maybe not, but this, to me, isn't a price drop, it's an RIF. Giving you it without all the useful gizmos? What a load of rubbish. Especially when one considers if that would ever be transferred to the UK the consumer will LOSE money replacing the AWOL items. You save about what, five dollars? That's not even enough to buy lunch.

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

I'm just surprised no one's come up with an emulator for the current version. Anyways, I have a PSP. It was bought for me as a birthday gift last year, and I kinda think the price tag at the time was a bit high considering th content available... but, me and my excitement netted me it anyway

There do seem to be a few decent games besides Lumines now, though. I'm all excited over Megaman: Powered Up. Looks cutesy, but from what I've read in the reviews it's every bit as difficult as the original Megaman (a remake) and more so, with a couple of new bosses and the ability to play as the bosses themselves! Yay!

Also, Tokobot looks pretty good too.


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Quote

Do you think we're forever?

Quote (Silverlance @ 20th March 2006 22:32)

I guess it depends what you plan on doing with it... Personally, I'd never bring a handheld system anywhere. I wouldn't have any use for it (*hands cue stick* "Hey dude, you take this shot for me. I have to get THE POWER UP!!!! =) ") I heard a lot of stuff about its screen scratching easily though, so I figure at least some kind of protective cover would be necessary... >"<

The headphones are a waste of money, though. I'm sure everyone here has a decent pair of headphones somewhere. Nothing beats playing with $75 KOSS headphones.

... why have both your comments made reference to how much money you have? >_>

Anyway, SL, I'm pretty sure that neither of us are the target market for the PSP or the DS. That said, I'm sure Sony doesn't care what we think. And of course they'll still be making money off the unit, because, as Lasz said, they are dropping the price by removing accessories. What this will mostly do is move more units in the gift-giving scenario, and just stick the smaller additional burden on those who receive the gifts. In the long run, Sony still gets most of the money they want anyway.

And in my experience both at the selling end and the creation end of the retail market, the average for a retail good is that it sells for roughly 3x what it costs to make. I've never worked in the field of electronic hardware manufacture, but I'd wager it still holds mostly true.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Interesting strategy. It might work. But I'd still rather go for the DS. Better games and all that.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

But the PSP is 100% customizable (spelling?) if you know how to modify it. You can play all the originals with emulators such as Chrono Trigger, Phantasy star and even Pokemon (although pokemon is a bad example as its the most boring game ever, But thats off topic) So to be quite frank you can do alot more with a psp than a ds. The psp is quality for money.

This post has been edited by The Red Death on 21st March 2006 15:37

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Seal my fate tonight
I hate to have to cut the fun short
But the jokes wearing thin
let the audience in
let my opera begin!-The Phantom of the Opera

Quote (The Red Death @ 21st March 2006 08:44)

But the PSP is 100% customizable (spelling?) if you know how to modify it. You can play all the originals with emulators such as Chrono Trigger, Phantasy star and even Pokemon (although pokemon is a bad example as its the most boring game ever, But thats off topic) So to be quite frank you can do alot more with a psp than a ds. The psp is quality for money.

As we already discussed, the PSP is only customizable in that way if you have one of the two earliest versions. After that, the firmware has been upgraded to keep people from, say, running emulators.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Yes but you are forgetting that you can also downgrade the firmwire by hacking the psp. So whether your on firmwire 2.5 or 2.0 etc. you can always downgrade. I mean I have psp maxed out with hacks, homebrews. There is always a glitch in sony's security, so there for there will always be a hack. The 2.6 hack has nearly been broke through so, as I say: It will always be customizable. While the DS only has a selections of games that nintendo choose to release.

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the PSP is only customizable in that way if you have one of the two earliest versions

Not entirely true. People have GBA and snes Emulators in developement for FW 2.0 & 2.5. Infact I think there is already a GBA emulator for 2.0 and above.

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Seal my fate tonight
I hate to have to cut the fun short
But the jokes wearing thin
let the audience in
let my opera begin!-The Phantom of the Opera

Quote (Rangers51 @ 21st March 2006 06:41)

... why have both your comments made reference to how much money you have? >_>

Actually, I don't have $75 KOSS headphones. I wish I did for gaming, but I just don't. However, I HAVE experienced playing Worms (back in ye 'ol days) with expensive, kick-ass headphones, and the deep bass of exploding shells was just awesome.

Either way I agree 100% that this is working in Sony's favor. After all, they'd have to be pretty dumb to do something like this if it doesn't bring in more money (due to reduced production costs or whatever, or more sales because people think it's a better deal.) But it's not too bad a deal for those of us whom aren't in a situation where all of the extras are necessary. If anything it means carrying less junk back home after buying it... unless you use the extra $50 saved to buy yourself groceries, in which case you're SOL.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

i'd just liek to know if they will be releasing this "new" bundle in Canada.

The source link I posted mentions that the "new" bundle will be available in Canada for $230 CND. I assume that's a price drop from what it was before, but it doesn't mention the original Canadian price in the article, so I'm not certain about that.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Alright, Thank you very much.

I personaly like this new price drop because it meens that i can get what i want For cheeper ( that being PSP system the cheeper $59.99 1 gig memory card that has to be formated the hard caring case fire wire and GTA) with out having to pay more and have a flimsy soft caring case and 32mb usless memory card I know you could use it for game saves but then u have to carry 2 cards and one might get lost so i prefer just using 1. So i think this is a great deal for thoes of us who want to pick what we get