Sony PSP sees a price drop, but there's a catch...

Posted on Tuesday 21st March 2006 at 00:28 by laszlow

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

Posted in: Gaming Industry News

Written by	laszlow
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	Member Since: 2003-10-16
	News articles posted: 98
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Comments

Zeromus_X	Comment 1: 2006-03-21 01:28
	Huh. I thought that the PSP coughemulator machinecough 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.
Silverlance	Comment 2: 2006-03-21 01:49
	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.
Gears	Comment 3: 2006-03-21 02:51
	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.
Silverlance	Comment 4: 2006-03-21 03:32
	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.
Elena1999	Comment 5: 2006-03-21 05:03
	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.
karasuman	Comment 6: 2006-03-21 05:14
	Quote (Zeromus_X @ 20th March 2006 20:28) PSP coughemulator machinecough 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.
SaffireWeapon	Comment 7: 2006-03-21 05:36
	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!!
Zeromus_X	Comment 8: 2006-03-21 06:03
	Quote (karasuman @ 21st March 2006 00:14) Quote (Zeromus_X @ 20th March 2006 20:28) PSP coughemulator machinecough 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
Del S	Comment 9: 2006-03-21 08:31
	Quote (Zeromus_X @ 21st March 2006 01:28) Huh. I thought that the PSP coughemulator machinecough 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.
ultimage	Comment 10: 2006-03-21 08:32
	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.
Rangers51	Comment 11: 2006-03-21 11:41
	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.
Barrylocke	Comment 12: 2006-03-21 13:25
	Interesting strategy. It might work. But I'd still rather go for the DS. Better games and all that.
The Red Death	Comment 13: 2006-03-21 13:44
	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.
karasuman	Comment 14: 2006-03-21 22:41
	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.
The Red Death	Comment 15: 2006-03-21 23:11
	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. Quote 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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