Topic: Shocking Psp sales yay for nIntendo?

[Darkheart]

I work at a Toys R Us in Il and wow just wow today was unexpected.  We got in 30 Psps or so and we sold in a day about 6 of them.  One of the guys just wanted it for his digital camera...................he didnt want games because he said he hated them <,< lol oh well.  I know a few of you guys work in Gamestops or EBs did you guys not sell out on them today or what?  I know we got like 37 or so Ds's on launch and we pretty much sold out on the first day.  Just was wonderin.......

[Noble~Feather]

Uh, no.

Just because PSP didn't sell well in certain stores, it doesn't mean it had bad sales.

Wait for the actual figures, and then we'll discuss.  

[Darkheart]

Meh im sure the sales are going to be good i was just curious of how everyone who works in game stores ended up.  One thing for sure, out of the 6 customers who got PSPs none were for children or bought by them.  

[Noble~Feather]

That's because it's way too expensive for the kiddiez...  

[RickPowers]

Yeah, I think the price is most certainly a factor here.  If I had been the one to make the decision, I would have launched it at $199, and dropped some of the extraneous accessories.

[KDR_11k]

Those accessories make up for some of the loss Sony takes on the system. I mean, look at the stuff, it's cheap merchandise that costs them 10 USD to make at most.

[Darkheart]

Yes the accesories are cheap but the mem card isnt.  Our third party mem cards are all 50 smackeroos alone.

[KDR_11k]

The memstick is cheap to make as it's only a 32MB one. 128MB Flash media costs 20 with markup and everything. Those 50 bucks might be less than what the end user pays for the stuff but Sony can get it MUCH cheaper. Since it's packed into the same box transport and storage is vastly cheaper for these accessories.

[Don'tHate742]

Sony Memory Sticks are expensive period. Maybe not to Sony, but they'll think twice before dropping the price of their memory. Pesonally, it's the worse type of flash memory availabe. SD cards are far cheaper (to consumers) and has more memory to boot.

Anyways, I'm not surprised. It doesn't have much going for it. Having a video and audio feature that revolve around you buying a horribly expensive memory stick or mini-disk dvd's that can't be used for anything else, is a huge flaw that everyone should of foreseen. It'll only sell for those that already have a horribly expensive memory stick, or those that want games. I don't think anyone would want it other wise, if they knew that they'd have to pay $100-$200 more to play music and photos and $25 (just a geuss) for priorety dvd's. And 100-200 dollars worth in memory stick, is about......200-300 songs, which isn't worth it at all and neither are dvd's.

Again, it'll come down to games, or those who have a memory stick and want to take their images/music on the go, or both.

The PSP isn't really that economical at all, and I think that fact is going to hender sales.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Anyone who thought the PSP would sell out on day one was fooling themselves, that being said many people are buying it because of miinformation, I've heard people think that it'll play DVD's and CD's, and will have storage capacity like the Ipod.

I have to admit, sony succeded again in fooling the public.

[nickmitch]

I think most people will have it just to listen to music and maybe buy like 3-5 games a year. They'll just buy ivest in the 1GB memory card and just delete their old game data. And people who do this are just idiots who sho just but and ipod and save money and if they need to play games then just get a damn GBASP to scratch that itch.
For me its just like I want one but I have better things to do with my money.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

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I think most people will have it just to listen to music and maybe buy like 3-5 games a year. They'll just buy ivest in the 1GB memory card and just delete their old game data. And people who do this are just idiots who sho just but and ipod and save money and if they need to play games then just get a damn GBASP to scratch that itch.

Its the system for people who want to look cool and have money to throw away.

A one GB memory stick will probably cost the same as the DS...yup at amazon a 1 gb mem stick from scandisk is $118.95  lowest price(the sony one is $229.28, that's like a second PSP!)

UMD's are around $14.00 on sale, about the same as the DVD's(hellboy 2 disc dvd 14.96, the UMD 13.97, yeah a great deal...not)

Music...yeah, no thanks I can get an Ipod for that, and games...if I want PS2 games I'll buy a PS2!

[Savior]

Well, look at it this way. You could have an iPod in one pocket, a Nintendo DS in another, and a Portable DVD in a third pocket.

or a PSP.

I can understand why people would be atracted to it. Hell i think its a nice looking system. Dont know if ill buy one but its nice and a nice idea.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

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Well, look at it this way. You could have an iPod in one pocket, a Nintendo DS in another, and a Portable DVD in a third pocket.

or a PSP.

I can understand why people would be atracted to it. Hell i think its a nice looking system. Dont know if ill buy one but its nice and a nice idea.

The difference is all of those other items do their tasks at a higher quality than the PSP.

really though that's all the PSP has going for it, it looks good and it allows you to do multiple things, at the sacrifice of quality.  

[Artimus]

The games look fine. It's a very powerful gaming handheld.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

I agree they look fine, but the last thing I need is another ridge racer or need for speed game, its nothing I can't get elsewhere.

[RickPowers]

"The difference is all of those other items do their tasks at a higher quality than the PSP."

Silly rabbit.  Quality does not ALWAYS win, and no one knows that better than Sony.  (Betamax, Minidisc.)  Sony has had several higher-quality technologies that lost out in the marketplace to lower-priced alternatives and synergistic efforts.  I think Sony is clued into that, and realizes that they don't have to do everything perfectly, but just get it into the market at a reasonable price, and give it enough capability to do several things just well enough.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

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Silly rabbit. Quality does not ALWAYS win, and no one knows that better than Sony. (Betamax, Minidisc.) Sony has had several higher-quality technologies that lost out in the marketplace to lower-priced alternatives and synergistic efforts. I think Sony is clued into that, and realizes that they don't have to do everything perfectly, but just get it into the market at a reasonable price, and give it enough capability to do several things just well enough.

Agreed, and it helps when the unwashed masses are too ignorant to know better.

[Darkheart]

WOW this one is good check out here  This speaks for itself, its exactly how my store is.  Oh update on our stock of psps out of the 40 psps i think we have 31 left on day 2.

[Talon]

Sony isnt marketing the PSP at the younger market, they are hoping to capture the same market the bought the I-Pod.

By the time the PSP launches in Australia id assume its going to cost somewhere around $500-$1000 now I dont know about you guys but that is quite expensive for a portable gaming device when the DS is only $199.  Hell the memory sticks for the PSP alone are going to cost nearly as much as buying a DS.

So im really not suprised and the lackluster sales of the PSP. Oh and one other thing the I-Pod doesnt play video games so it appeals to a different audience to what the PSP and DS does.

[KDR_11k]

Yummy, IGN bashing: "Go ahead, call some Best Buys in the area. Some Toys R US, or Circuit City stores. And then rewrite you're [sic] glowing praise to reflect what's really happening."

Savior: Funny that you mention it, a survey (about PDAs) has shown that people prefer cheaper and better dedicated systems to multifunction devices and are willing to carry up to three devices in their pockets.

[Grant10k]

I was at target early today (the 26'th for people who don't like to look up at the post creation date) and there were plenty behind the shelves, I overheard the target guy talking to a customer (looked to be about 30'ish, mabey older) and the target guy mentioned that it didn't actually play movies from the sony memory stick yet, they haven't released the conversion tools yet. the customer didn't buy one because he had to get permession from his wife to get one, but it didn't look like he was worried about them selling out. Media play had tons as well, and they have signs out front advertising it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I just talked to a friend of mine, and he said that there were plenty of PSP left where he picked his up at.
Mostly because almost all of them had dead pixels.  He had to exchange his PSP 4 times to get one without any dead pixels, and he wasn't leaving the store until he had the perfect one.

He also said on of them had a straight up white pixel, it was still white even when the system was off.

he also says (in regards to the systems style, graphics & out of the box features):

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"The DS is a toy, The PSP is a system!!"

But he really didn't have much to say when we talked about price/size ratio of memorysticks to use for the system versus SD cards that should have been used instead (imho)

[Robotor]

Talon: When you say $1000 dollars do you mean US or Australian?  Either way that's still INSANE pricings.  I can't understand paying that much for a handheld, regardless of what it does.  $250 dollars is just and INSANE price, and thats only the sytem with no demos or anything.  Another $50 for a game, and another $100 if you want a better memory stick.  That's $400 dollars, which is simply ridiculous.  The seeminlgy Lackluster sales are probably due to this.

That price is so incredibly INSANE they need to take it to the asylum...

[clevelandst124]

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"The DS is a toy, The PSP is a system!!"
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I hate it when people say stupid things like this.  So this guy is so mature that he doesn't play with toys anymore?  Give me a break.  The DS and PSP are both toys and systems.  Heck I think of myself as a big kid who buys toys like my truck and my motorcycle.  But I guess I'm not mature enough to own a PSP.  

I'm also wondering what store he bought a PSP from that didn't care that he just opened up five brand new PSPs, turned them on to make sure it was the one he wanted, then bought one.