Topic: PSP PRICE ANNOUNCED!!!

[ruby_onix]

I was curious about day-2, so I just got back from the mall.

In EB, the PSP was selling. There was a lineup. But, I think EB was deliberately trying to create that lineup, because the clerks were working sooo slooowwlyyyy. They were definitely trying to make it look busier in there than it really was.

And the clerks were selling the PSP hard.

Quote
"Oh yeah, it can do anything. It's the most powerful hardware in history. Better than the Xbox. It can do pictures, mp3s, it can play DVD movies and PlayStation games. You can play games wirelessly against anyone on the planet, and they're about to announce that it's a free cellular phone."

^^^ I am seriously not joking.

Also...

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"You know, you're really lucky, because we have almost none of them left. Sony can't even make enough of them to satisfy the unprecedented demand. They're selling-out worldwide. If you don't buy one right now you won't get another chance to get one until after Christmas."

Also, they now had two PSP units sitting loose on the counter. I would've tried to look at one of them, if I wasn't worried that my arm would get bitten off if I had tried to reach through the lineup of grumpy, frustrated soon-to-be PSP owners. They really didn't look as happy as they should be.

Apparently SCEA is saying that they won't accept returns on dead pixel units. Dead pixels are just a "natural part of modern technology", thus, they're a natural part of the PSP. The pattern of dead pixels in your display is like your PSP's unique fingerprint.

Anyways, apparently this means that EB is stuck with the dead pixel units, because they have this thing where if you pay $5 when you buy a system, you can return it for whatever reason (whether Sony considers a dead pixel to be a "feature" or not). EB will probably try and push these units back out again as "preowned" units, to you better watch out if you're even thinking about getting a preowned PSP from EB.

Zellers next door had sold about half of their units (6 down, 6 to go).

My conclusion is that Sony shipped 1 million PSP units, and that's the extent of Sony's concern here. That's what they will be bragging about. I mean, hey, the retail outlets have already paid Sony for them, so technically they've all been sold. Many retailers are now stuck with expensive PSP units that aren't selling, but they will sell them, one way or another.

[Don'tHate742]

That's a really funny post Ruby_Onix.

And to think, Americans gobble up technology more than the Japanese, yet sales are worse out the gate. There's an ironic taste to all of this.

[allcaps]

Quote
Originally posted by: ruby_onix
Yeah. To elaborate, for those who are boy.

It has some homeboy (probably a drug dealer) strutting down the street playing a PSP. .

I really hope you aren't inferring that the guy was a drug dealer because he was black, which I'm guessing is what you mean by a "homeboy".

[Renny]

The businessman was probably looking to score some rock.

[ruby_onix]

He was black, wearing "gangsta" style clothing, and flaunting his wealth.

I guess he might have been a pimp or something...

[PJ gamer10]

At my store we have had a few PSP systems brought back because of dead pixel issues. We did sell out of our stock though so we were not able to exchange it for them. we received 100 systems for our launch day. One thing i did notice was that people were buying the system and no games. I thought it was odd but some people were saying they did not want the same games as their home system. Many people just bought it because it had the Playstation name. Should be interesting to see how many systems we do get back because of faulty issues.  

[allcaps]

Quote
Originally posted by: ruby_onix
He was black, wearing "gangsta" style clothing, and flaunting his wealth.

I guess he might have been a pimp or something...

I just saw the commercial. I'm guessing you've never seen a black person outside of TV in your life if you would call what he was wearing "gangsta style clothing".

[Hostile Creation]

The only black guy who's my really good friend wears blue clothes and believes he's the king of the ocean, so I have an even more severe misperception of blacks than most people do.

[ruby_onix]

I should probably point out that I was mostly joking about the "drug dealer" and "pimp" stuff.

(Although I did honestly get the impression that was the image Sony was trying to shoot for, although I've only seen that commercial once.)

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Quote
Originally posted by: PJ gamer10
At my store we have had a few PSP systems brought back because of dead pixel issues. We did sell out of our stock though so we were not able to exchange it for them. we received 100 systems for our launch day. One thing i did notice was that people were buying the system and no games. I thought it was odd but some people were saying they did not want the same games as their home system. Many people just bought it because it had the Playstation name. Should be interesting to see how many systems we do get back because of faulty issues.

Sounds like a lot of those people thought it plays PS2 games.

[Talon]

Lets not forget that the DS was released just before the PSP so alot of people either
a) Dont have the money to buy a PSP cause they already bought a DS or
b) People are happy with their DS and really arent interested in the PSP at this point in time or
c) People are watching how both the DS and PSP stack up against one another before they buy one

It will be interesting to see what happens later in the year towards christmas, then we will know which is the must have and which the must not.

[Stimutacs Addict]

the advanced media network just announced that there are 2 Command and Conquer games en route to the PSP, which got me thinking. . .

who the F*%|< would make an RTS on the PSP, when they could make it 2wice as cool on the DS?

[KDR_11k]

Probably spinoffs like Renegade...

[Talon]

Quote
Originally posted by: Stimutacs Addict
the advanced media network just announced that there are 2 Command and Conquer games en route to the PSP, which got me thinking. . .

who the F*%|< would make an RTS on the PSP, when they could make it 2wice as cool on the DS?

Developers who think it would have more success on the PSP. Not to mention SONY would probably be paying EA big money to get these titles on the PSP. I agree with you that they would be better suited to the DS but money talks and bullshit (Command & Conquer on PSP) walks.

Maybe some sort of mouse peripheral is in the works for the PSP?

[darknight06]

Command and Conquer hasn't been good since Westwood was bought out.  This is obviously being made for two reasons, milk the franchise, and it won't have competition like it would on the DS.

[dmbfan755]

Does anyone know if 24: The Game, when released later this year, will be released on the PSP, or is it totally exclusive to PS2, not just Sony?

[ruby_onix]

So it looks like the sales figure Sony's going to be bragging about is 500,000.

Quote
Pulling in more than $150 million at retailers across the country, the new handheld system outpaced every product sold in the time period, in addition to selling over 500,000 Value Packs in the first two days alone.

Quote
"The launch of PSP was everything we hoped for, with extraordinary consumer demand driving sales of hardware units alone upwards of $150 million in first week sales, far and away above those generated by any other product in the space," said Kaz Hirai, president and chief executive officer, Sony Computer Entertainment America. "In only two weeks, PSP is having an immediate impact across the entire industry as consumers are clearly voting it the product of the year in 2005."

I also liked this part...

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"GameStop, Inc. has seen an extraordinary cross section of consumers come through our doors including hard core gamers, business men and women of all ages looking to get a PSP," said Dan DeMatteo, vice-chairman and chief operational officer, GameStop Inc. "The overall entertainment value of PSP is giving it a mass appeal beyond any other product we have ever carried."

[ruby_onix]

Here's a funny thing.

Everyone is doing the math and seeing that $150 million, divided by the $250 PSP, would be 600,000 units. And Sony said "over 500,000" units sold.

GameSpot even says "600,000" in the headline of their story on it.

But if you think about it, Sony didn't say that $150 million was just for hardware. Just that the PSP's launch "generated it".

Think about this for a second...

$250 PSP hardware times 500,000 units would be $125 million.

$50 PSP games times 500,000 units would be... $25 million.

Could the PSP actually be having an abysmal 1-1 tie ratio? Some people are buying the hardware with zero games. How many people bought a second game for their system when they were already shelling out $300?

Could be very interesting. I can hardly wait for the NPD numbers to come out.  


Edit: Sony's official press release says that it "generated more than $150 million", but a little lower it also says that it did $150 million on "hardware units alone", so there goes my theory.

[ruby_onix]

Here's a few more updated anecdotes from me.

I visited my local EB and Zellers on friday. Zellers was sold out of the last of their PSPs hardware, and they had shuffled some other product over to fill it's empty space (they still had a small section for PSP games). In EB, there was a bit of a scene, as someone who bought a launch day PSP was trying to return/exchange it because of dead pixels. The store was telling him "no", and he wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.

The manager had come out and was trying to get him to lower his voice. She was telling him "Look, I can take you into the back room and show you the email we got from Sony, telling us not to take back any PSPs that have dead pixels, because they aren't gonna give us a dime for them. Maybe if you had more than 14 dead pixels then we could help you, but as-is, Sony doesn't think that four of five dead pixels is going to interfere with your games."

The guy started saying "If I had gotten it from Future Shop instead of you, I bet I would've been able to return it." The manager took out her wallet and said "If I take that unit from you, I might as well just hand you $300 (Canadian) from my own wallet, because that unit's not gonna do me any good. I'm not going to do that. Maybe someone at Future Shop might do that for you, but I won't."

Then they guy started saying that he wanted the guy who was working the register on launch day to be fired, because he wasn't warning people, but the manager said that was ridiculous, and absolutely out of the question.

The guy eventually left, saying that he was never going to shop at EB again.


Someone came in a bit later, thinking about buying a PSP. They told him that it comes with Spiderman 2, which tells me that they're still working on selling their launch units. One clerk told the guy that it plays mp3s and DVD movies. They guy said "Whoa! It plays DVDs too?!?" The other clerk popped in with "Well, not exactly. Not ordinary DVDs. They have to be mini discs, otherwidse they wouldn't fit." The guy said "What? Minidisc? I have those. For my car stereo. They're great. I didn't think anyone else even knew what they were." To which the clerk had to respond "No, not 'Minidisc' mini disc. It's 'UMD'. Made by Sony." To which they guy said "Yeah, all my Minidiscs are made by Sony." The clerk said "No no, it's not the same thing. Sony decided to make an all-new format. Again. It doesn't work with anything else. Just the PSP." To which the guy said "Oh. Well that sucks."


Yesterday I went out to New Westminster (a suburb) and checked out another EB, a WalMart, and a Best Buy.

In EB, while looking over their games, I noticed that they had two PSP units in the glass cabinet behind the cashiers. Someone came up and asked if they had any PSP units left, and they said "Wow, your timing is great. I think we have ONE unit left. It's in the back of the store. I'll go get it." He went off, and he came back, saying "Yep, this is the last one that we have in stock." Meanwhile I'm just staring at the two behind the counter...

Over in WalMart they has around 20 PSP units in their videogame cabinet. Over in Best Buy, they must have had at least 50 units in a white-metal locking cage.

[KDR_11k]

UMD hacked. In other news the DS now runs Linux.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Hrrm.  My dad just called from a conference across the country and apparently he won a PSP in a raffle.

I'm not sure what to make of this...

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Do your best to keep guns/psps off the streets.

[Renny]

Chris Rock says trade in your PSP for a blade.

[stevey]

I not getting a psp because of $$$ and the umd cost $50 DOLLAR! $50 DOLLAR come on just for a d*mn movie that cost 20 on dvd that can be played on any tv $60 DOLLAR for ps1 port that are in wide screen.

I can buy a ps1 with a batty pack and bigger lcd widescreen for a $150 and game for 10. WHY it selling, why it selling?Didn't they say psp was backward captal with ps1 and play dvd a few year ago and now what? Rebuy it so sony get more your money.

PSP is more powerfull so was the n-gage but gba with 2d bet the 3d n-gage why don' the rule aply to sony? The ps3 is the same thing the neo geo did and they die and both were go for matur game.

am I not seeing something or did the world go crazy?

[IceCold]

It's the brand name. The name "Playstation" has become extremely popular, especially to casual gamers. Sony are relying too much on the fact that people will buy it just because it's a PS. They also advertised the PSP a LOT, and that always has an effect.

However, the sales will slow down, and when titles such as Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Kirby etc come to North America, the DS should start to pull away. Another Code is a wildcard - I'm not sure if it will do too well, but it has potential