NEWS: Sony PSP Launch Details for the U.S.

GEEK: Sony PSP Launch Details for the U.S.

Sony Has finally unveiled the launch plans for its PSP Handheld Console for North American Retailers. The product will launch on March 24th, 2005 at the price of $249.99US and $299.99CN.

too much money! wanted it to be 200 then i would think about getting it, but its way too much money for something with shitty battery life.

You could buy two consoles for that price..

But it is oh so sexy.

A bit too expensive but... well...

w00t.

Haha, good luck Sony.

Man, the PSP is gonna be huge. Sony doesn't need luck, Nintendo is the one who needs luck at this point.

I guess. I won't be buying one anytime soon though, not with a 250 dollar price tag.

$250 for a fucking handheld?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Sounds allot like the Turbo Graphix Express, except this has a lower price tag.

i'm sorry for not talking like a crazed fanboy, but overall the DS has been outselling the PSP in japan. it's close, i think the PSP outsold the DS in one weeks charts, but overall the DS is still in the lead.
maybe there are enough people out there that want a handheld (or maybe even two) to have both being successful. people scream about the gamecube losing the console battle, but they still make a big profit every year, so they seem pretty happy. being number one is nice, but if you could make a bigger profit as the second best seller where would you want to be?
it's looking like both handhelds are going to do pretty well.

Look on the bright side - at $249 for the "value pack" its a much better deal than the £179 (amazon pre-order price) we're expected to pay for the base unit

Hopefully Sony will drop the price once the fanatical early adopters have sated them for fat profit margins and us mere mortals can all get a look in for a more reasonable cost.

Originally, it was supposed to be 200, but they added a battery pack, carrying case, and 32mb memory card, among a few other things, including a demo disc. This is the reason for the 250 dollar value pack.

Still not paying that much, sorry.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to play massive RPGs and million billion pixeled online racing games on the bus to school. I'd rather just play Tetris. Or old SNES games.

It's doubly not worth it if they didn't fix that square button thing....

im not even gonna think about getting one until they fix that.

the PSP is really good actually. I've had mine for a couple weeks now, havent' had a problem with the battery life or the UMD popping out. of course, i can't read the *&&^%% instructions for the games, but you don't need to read Japanese to figure out Ridge Racer!!

Eeesh, bend over.

the PSP's were all fucked up in japan and in typical sony fashion they refused to admit there was a problem, so they are proably gonna be fucked up here too.

what problems you may ask? how about this:
the analog nub, dosnt just tear off, the whole assembly falls out

you twist the thing slightly, (say as if you were playing a game and pushing franticly on a button so as to cause slight torque) and the fucking disk pops out, well shoots out to be honest.

also the screens have on average 2-3 dead pixels (white or black spots on the screen)

if you dont belive me, check here also here's an article about how the sony big boss wont admit there being a problem (in referance to the square botton not working due to the fact that it hits the screen when you press it, so the signal wont go through or is not as strong) and telling the game makers to adapt (i guess make games that dont use that button)

so as much as i want one i think i'll wait for either the price to drop or the second model to come out. my friend keeps telling me to get a DS, but we had a demo unit at the Gamestop i worked at till recently, and it wasn't that impressive, the units were half a foot apart and didnt link up most of the time.
Also the whole touch screen thing and wireless chat and choice of games, i dont know, but i think the designers really didn't take the american market into consideration while making it.

its like they built it to have all the stuff the Japanese audiance would expect, and acccept and then just looked over at the US and said "Uh, it should work for you guys too... i mean look its got cool stuff, TWO SCREENS, and one is touch sensitive... aint that neat?"

Alot of the design principals are really centered aroung the japanese culture, and thats easily adapted to the culture of american children. But what about me, the 20-somthing gamer who wants to play while waiting for a bus or train or inbetween classes, and has the urge do spy battles?

the functionality of the PSP was really cool, Games, movies, mp3's thats bad ass, three things i have that i can take with me in one, i can leave the walkman and mini dvd palyer at home and just take my psp, and lots of batteries...
the movie thing is actually a bit upsetting when you think about it, its not like the psp itself can record movies off my dvd player and onto a blank mini disk thingy, or that there will be an optional thing i can buy that will do it that would be expensive as hell, so that just leaves me with the feeling that you would just have to buy little disks at the movie store for your psp, which limits the amount of movies that will be available, because other than sony i dont know how many companies are gonna want to manufacture on a new format, and dvds, and also i i want to be able to watch a movie i like on the road, and dont want to drag previously mentioned travel dvd player around, i will have to buy the same movie twice(if its available)

which brings me to the Sony Microsoft looking to make thier next gen systems work on new format disks and try to replace dvd format, but thats a whole different rant. the point to that rant is "Laserdisk came to early, DVD was just right, to early for a new format at least for movies."

[Edited on Feb 07, 2005 by FireBrand]

i'll pass , not gonna pay that much money for a handheld. Its ds for me.

poor nintendo... i am going to wait until they give it a price drop... and its fucking sony... it will be great.. i am sure they will fix that problem with the games shotting out of it

For $249 it had better fellate me on a regular basis.

Where's the Armored Core release?
DS may win this battle, but that game alone is why I would buy a PSP being that I'm a foaming at the teeth fan of the series.

History sides with the DS on this one. The handheld market has traditionally gone with systems that were more portable, smaller, had longer battery life, and were cheaper.

However, I'm not interested in either new handheld yet, because neither of them has enough games that interest me. The DS leads with two games I want, Advance Wars and Mario 64 DS. That's not quite enough, though. However, in all respects other than graphics, the DS is leaps and bounds ahead of the PSP. And to be quite frank, my favourite gaming system currently is the GBA SP, so fancy 3D graphics are not a big selling point with me, most especially in the handheld market. They're nice and all, don't get me wrong, but I need that longer battery life and smaller size.

Games will, of course, ultimately decide wich system, if either, that I go with.