New PSP Marketing, Same Price

Posted on Wednesday 22nd November 2006 at 15:20 by karasuman

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, Sony is pouring their efforts into selling the console they can actually stock: the PlayStation Portable, or PSP. Their lagging foray into the handheld market currently dominated by the Nintendo DS will be bolstered by a new marketing campaign that, oddly enough, mimics features the DS has had in place for a while.

The new PSP Download Stations will allow PSP owners to visit and download content via a wireless connection. (Sound familiar, yet?) Available content will include demos, movie trailers, videos, and game sharing. Sony is also launching a new advertising campaign pushing the PSP.

Unfortunately, Sony isn't doing the thing that fans have been most hoping for: lowering the PSP's $200 retail price as an added incentive for people to buy.

Source: GameSpot

Really, I don't see how Sony thinks that the PSP can possibly win in a head-on battle with the DS. Sure, it can show movies (if you can find anywhere to buy them), but, when it comes down to it, the PSP is just a Playstation you can take with you...but with shorter games and inferior graphics. The DS has innovation on it's side, not to mention the fact that the DSLite retails for only $129.99. In fact, if you're really on a budget, a refurbished DS will cost you only $80, compared to $170 for a used PSP. Then you factor in the complaints about dead pixels on the PSP's screen (which Sony claims are not a true defect and hence not a reason for repair or exchange), and it's really not hard to figure out why I don't own the only handheld to feature a Katamari game.

Of course, lowering the price would have gone a ways toward putting the PSP back in my ballgame, and doing so right before the holiday season could have done nothing but boost sales.

I don't think I need to call Sony an arrogant corporation this time. They pretty much speak for themselves.

Posted in: Gaming Industry News

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karasuman

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Comments

Hamedo

Comment 1: 2006-11-22 16:30

Your disdain for Sony makes me love you.

I don't truly "hate" any corporation, but I'd like to see Sony knocked off it's pedestal and replaced by the 360 or the Wii this go-round'.

Our local WalMart (Franklin, NC) is having a sale on Black Friday on PSP's for 169.00, but that is still not a deal compared to the DS and what you would pay for it even when not on sale.

I think an angle that Sony will be exploring is the connectivity between the PSP and the PS3 via USB. The newest Game Informer magazine has an interview with one of the big wheels (can't remember name, sorry!) in Sony, and he briefly discussed this, likening it as a peer-to-peer netwrok between the PSP and PS# that would allow them to connect to each other no matter where in the world you were.

karasuman

Comment 2: 2006-11-22 17:43

Quote (Hamedo @ 22nd November 2006 11:30)

Your disdain for Sony makes me love you.

I don't truly "hate" any corporation, but I'd like to see Sony knocked off it's pedestal and replaced by the 360 or the Wii this go-round'.

You misunderstand. I'm disgusted with Sony lately, but I don't want to see them knocked out of first place--I want to see them change to deserve first place. I want them to quit jerking customers around. I want them to publish good games. I want the PSP to be worth buying.

I love my PS2. As much as I like the Wii, I doubt that it's going to replace it. What I really want is for the PS3 to be a quality product that's worth buying and will last a long time.

Elessar

Comment 3: 2006-11-22 18:28

Quote (Hamedo @ 22nd November 2006 12:30)

I think an angle that Sony will be exploring is the connectivity between the PSP and the PS3 via USB. The newest Game Informer magazine has an interview with one of the big wheels (can't remember name, sorry!) in Sony, and he briefly discussed this, likening it as a peer-to-peer netwrok between the PSP and PS# that would allow them to connect to each other no matter where in the world you were.

Doesn't the Nintendo DS already wireless interact with the Wii?

Hamedo

Comment 4: 2006-11-22 18:31

Quote

No, I'm serious... I completely understand. I want the same things. I think that Sony will be a better company once it is replaced at #1 for a while. When you are lagging behind, you tend to get very creative and competitive. Moreso than you do if you're the fat kid at the top that always gets the cake. The 360 or the Wii supplanting Sony would be a great thing not because it would give Sony a black eye, but because it would mean that they would work harder to do all of the things that you noted. Better support, better games, an overall better product. That is what Nintendo has done this go-round after coming in last in the console wars for years now, and it's given us amazing in house games such as Zelda and the SSB series, the Wii-mote, excellent public relations and communication, and affordable prices.

Jlombardi13

Comment 5: 2006-11-22 22:03

Hamedo, you make an excellent point. I was going to suggest that Nintendo had to do something to take back the top spot in the console race, and the Wii is just that. Will it work? I don't know, but it's definitely a big leap from everything else out there.

Sony's PSP is very much "Sony". Great graphics, licenses, and audio/video features. Unfortunately it lacks in other categories where Nintendo is often the forerunner - construction quality and reliability, innovation, and accessibility (both in games and prices).

I don't particularly dislike Sony, because they make good systems with great games and I won't take that away from them.

I think there are a lot of parallels between the PS3 and the N64.

Both are/were highly priced. Both are/were more powerful than anything on the market.

Nintendo stuck to its cartridges in 96 when everyone went for CDs. This cost them in the long run. Sony is going to blue-ray discs, which, agreed, may be the future. But while blue-ray discs can pack more info into a game, it won't necessarily make it better... If the Wii is successful enough, who'll play a blue-ray game with a conventional controller?

Of course the Wii could flop. CDs are fragile and gamers (especially younger ones) could have altogether boycotted the Playstation back when it was released. It's all a risk.

I like the competition between Sony and Nintendo because it keeps both companies in check. If either one had a monopoly we could expect higher prices and less progression.

ultimage

Comment 6: 2006-11-23 02:37

Well, I already have a PSP (got for a birthday gift last year) and I'm happy with it... I certainly would not like to see it pushed out, but I imagine if Sony doesn't drop the price this may happen. Even so, and I've said it on many occasions, my relationship with Sony ends with the PSP. It just seems to me that they're focusing more on fancy technological extras rather than the actual gaming market. As an established habitual gamer since my childhood I don't feel like it's really all that necessary to have more than just a great gaming platform. So the Wii looks more and more attractive to me this time around.

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