Given that the next portable Playstation device is destined to land somewhere on the planet by the end of the year, it’s fairly expected that Sony would cut the price of the original PSP. The price drop landed today, cutting the RRP from $280 to $190.
$90 is a pretty good chunk of the price, but given the proximity to the NGP’s launch, it probably won’t persuade too many people to spend the cash. Either will the launch of Music Unlimited on the PSP device later this week, sadly.
[Sony]
Adrian Cascun-Valencic
Monday, April 11, 2011 at 1:40 PM*sigh* PSP. Hopefully Sony’s last foray into proprietary-format removable storage.
Cool lil’ device but it’s time to move on. Can NGP compete with 3DS? Or will it be dominated by Nintendo’s handheld like the PSP before it?
GameFreak
Monday, April 11, 2011 at 4:01 PMSony’s original foray into gaming was CD based, then went to Blu-Ray. When Sony went to portable gaming the PSP with the UMD was their proprietary choice, and originally movies were also released on this format, despite the UMD only holding 1.8Gb total capacity. The movies died off, the games still sell, which is surprising. Then Sony made the biggest shift – going internal storage only (16GB) with the option to add an 8GB M2 MemoryStick. The 16GB capacity was too small to start with hence, the M2 option.
The problem with the PSP Go was it alienised UMD owners, and meant retailers would not benefit at all financially selling the hardware because the software was downloadable only – no physical media required. This effectively segmented the PSP handheld gaming market to two areas – UMD and Non-UMD – effectively two standards and two distribution channels.
I admit the PSP Go was a great idea, but its pricing was way too high – almost $500 initially and not a game included, hence why Gran Turismo was included as a free download, then later 10 games included. The other major killer was no backwards compatibility – so a game on UMD would have to be re-purchased for the PSP Go and the screen was smaller but higher resoltion and very glossy.
In the end its “original” high price tag was enough to put people off, then owners having to forgo their UMD versions – basically switching handhelds to play a game. Hence, the new price tag and then the NGP will hit.
Let’s hope that Sony have learnt from their lesson with Nintendo outselling them.
Peter
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 1:00 AMThat’s a very intelligent perspective for a handheld discussion, almost refreshing. I had the first PSP imported from Japan. Even for the day, the screen had a long response time (30ms?). The PSP had a slightly modified version soon after that fixed some of the screen artefacts (colours washing), but it was still awful and blurry. It was hard to show off the amazing graphics when movement caused everything to look low-res. Long loading times and a lot of poorly reviewed but hyped games made the PSP a very average console in the end, and not desirable when you compared to the awesome games that were coming out for the DS at the same time.
About 6 months ago, I got a PSP Go. I didn’t care about the UMD issue because I had given my PSP to my brother in law as it was released in Australia. There were tons of games worth playing at this point with a few good minis as well, and I’ve spent hours catching up. Even Ogre Tactics released a month ago has been one of the best Tactical RPGs for many years with a more matured plot. So I’m glad I didn’t continue to use the PSP, but as a gamer, I’m glad I stopped at the end and got to appreciating all the good that eventually came out of it.
Even today the PSP’s are slightly more powerful than what you find in the 3DS after, what eight years?
Anyway, the NGP may be the same. I remember how excited I was about the number of polygons the PSP could do a second when I was reading about it originally. It only takes one flaw and a poor library to put off mainstream gamers.