remember when Sony made an overpriced handheld called the PSP

[Teleroboxer]

New comments made by recently promoted Sony Europe president Chris Deering regarding the PlayStation Portable have hinted at a price point in the £250 range, while Japanese retail sources quote figures in a similar range.

Deering stated that the system would diverge from Sony's traditional console business model by being sold at a price which would make a profit on hardware alone, and suggested a price "closer to £200 than £300."

This comment ties in with information from Japanese retail sources last this week, who told us that a price point around 50,000 Yen was being bandied about in Tokyo - in fact, the most exact figure we were given was 48,000 Yen, almost exactly £250.

Quoted in UK trade paper MCV, Deering said that "the feeling is that this product should generate profit on hardware alone. We want to make it affordable for publishers to produce a wide range of entertainment and so royalties will be lower down in the mix this time round."

A move to reduce royalties on the system would be a major boost to third party support for the PSP, especially since for many publishers, the last experience they had of handheld gaming was Nintendo's GBA - where high royalty and manufacturing costs mean that very few companies other than Nintendo itself make a profit from the system, despite the fact that Nintendo also makes a profit on hardware sales.

Last week, Deering stated that the company is aiming for a global launch for PSP in Novemberthis year, although this was quickly revised to mid-December by SCE vice president Masutsuka Saeki, who gave the new estimate in an interview with Famitsu.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/34807.html

48000 yen=450.717(USD) I believe.

With this price tag I have a feeling it will become an obscure handheld and a favorite of a certain type of game collector.

[Bird Boy]

Holy....



$450!? There's no way in hell they're gonna be able to pull that off. That's gotta be some sorta misprint or something...

-BB

[Sketch]

Woah... that is WAY too much. Some people will buy it still but if they want the mainstream then they really have to drop the price by at least 100 dollars if not 200.

[Mek]

I'd hate to say it, but that makes the N-Gage's $300 price tag look like chump change. X_x;

[Duke Psychology]

Sony did you NOT look at Nokia? this will NOT be successful until they knock it down by a lot.

[Killtacular]

Right now they're interested in getting developers, not impressing gamers. When we get closer to a launch date, we'll see a REAL price.

[Outlander00]

Right now they're interested in getting developers, not impressing gamers. When we get closer to a launch date, we'll see a REAL price.

Agreed... Its not a set price yet. If anything they are testing the waters to see how much they can charge for it. Though I am no expert, I am sure it wont be $450 dollars.

[Artimus Gigan]

I'll pay $100 for one

maximum 120

ok 150 if they got some good games at launch

[The Jinjo]

The GBA is a good machine. However a more powerful handheld can easily be made. But you see, anything that is more powerful than a GBA ends up costing way too much. At this point in time, the GBA is as far as we can go for a handheld, unless we want to pay 400 bucks.

[ZeroFate]

However a more powerful handheld can easily be made. But you see, anything that is more powerful than a GBA ends up costing way too much.

Didn't you contradict yourself? If a powerful handheld can "easily be made" that means it shouldn't cost too much.

Besides, I highly doubt the PSP will be $450. Sony is just making the initial price seem this high so that when they lower it to say, $200, it wouldn't seem like that much money. I can't wait till the PSP is released in November, but if it's anything above $200 I'm not buying. There's no way it should cost that much with Sony behind it.

[randomguy]

To echo what others have said, it's a working price.

Even if it wasn't, though, I'd still say the PSP has a good shot at stardom. Let's remember something: this system is not a GBA. 450 dollars would be a problem if we were trying to get this into kid hands, but that likely won't be the case. Sony has made it very, very clear that they're going for a different demographic. The PSP won't be marketed as a standard portable, it will be marketed as an upscale electronics device. In that sense, it's price is reasonable- right where an Ipod, Pocket PC, or Palm Pilot would be expected to be. It'll probably be able to do many of the same things as those gadgets. And they seem to have found a profitable niche.

Besides, the PS1 was five hundred dollars originally, but that turned out OK.

[TacoHunter]

PSP is going to try and go after Apple's iPod market. Its probably going to be $250 or $300 (same as the cheapest iPod). So I'm going to assume it's going to be a little bigger and bulkier, but it will most likely be a mp3 player. Which also means a hardrive, or one hell of a flash memory drive.

PS2 selling point was that not only where you get a videogame system, you were also getting a DVD player. The quality of the DVD player was that of a crap o' $100 or less DVD player, but it still played DVDs. So it makes me think the PSP is going to be a crappy mp3 player that can also play videogames. But I'm not sure how well it will work considering how insanely much cheaper the GBA is, and that the GBA has the largest library of games backing it too.

[Zombies8MDingo]

Considering the capabilities it's being touted as having and the fact alone that it's a handheld playstation will still bring in the punters, especially techie gadget freaks, like me I guess, who just have to have the latest cool thing. And establishing strong software support straight off the mark will be essential to head off any competition from Nintendo who currently dominate the handheld market.

[Jundaunted]

While the PSX (and by PSX, I mean that multimedia thing Sony released in Japan months ago, not the original PS) is proof enough that SCEI is not inmune to failure, I wouldn't count out the PSP yet. Unlike the N-Gage, the PSP is actually attracting various third party developers and good ones at that. Everyone from Konami to Capcom to Namco has all expressed interest for the PSP. It's probably the first worthy portable console to give the Game Boy a run for it's money since...well the Game Boy never really had much of a competition to begin with (some may be tempted to mention he Lynx and Game Gear, but they didn't have much in the way of good games and regretably, the NGPC only attracted a niche audience, even though it had a better library). It's not really bad to have some competition around.

[Bird Boy]

PS2 selling point was that not only where you get a videogame system, you were also getting a DVD player. The quality of the DVD player was that of a crap o' $100 or less DVD player, but it still played DVDs. So it makes me think the PSP is going to be a crappy mp3 player that can also play videogames. But I'm not sure how well it will work considering how insanely much cheaper the GBA is, and that the GBA has the largest library of games backing it too.

nGage plays MP3s too and that's $300, and rather small. And that didn't sell well at all...

But if the games are there, then yeah, I guess people will want it. Plus it'd have the Sony name behind it--I dunno, the machines gonna have to have alot more behind it than decent games and MP3 playability if it's price is gonna be above $100...

-BB

[TacoHunter]

But how much memory is on the Ngage to hold mp3s? That and the Ngage is ugly as hell. If Nokia knew a little something about esthetics and made the thing sleek and sexy as hell, it would probably be doing a bit better. Though, I don't really know. There are a lot of problems with the Ngage aside from appearances and such.

[SSJPabs]

While the PSX (and by PSX, I mean that multimedia thing Sony released in Japan months ago, not the original PS) is proof enough that SCEI is not inmune to failure...

Um, wrong.

" "We sold 100,000 PSXs in the first week," said Ken Kutaragi, Sony's Executive Deputy President ... "It sells for almost 100,000 yen ($941) and it still sold out. There are no products out there that can say that."

The PSX, which launched on December 13 in Japan, is the company's first play at the market for a moderately priced comprehensive media player. It can play and write DVDs, along with playing videogames using the same microprocessor as the PS2 console.

Kutaragi stated that Sony had managed to overtake Matsushita in this area, its main competitor in the electronics market. Sony's market share for DVD recorders with hard disk drives climbed from around 1 percent to 35 percent in December, slightly beating Matsushita's share.

Matsushita responded by blaming the introduction of new products, which includes the PSX, for the large increase. With such a near-equal share of the market, the company still expects to "come out on top" later on this year. "

Anyhow, the price point of PSP better come down, or Nintendo, here I come with my Gameboy dollars! Thats the first thing Sony taught me way back in 1997.... company loyalty is for suckers.

[Peter Paltridge]

Sony's biggest mistake will be overpricing it. Game Boy sells because it's the price people want to pay for a game-devoted handheld.

I don't think it'll vanish that fast though. Son'y got the cash to push it right. It'll at least be the next Game Gear, if it doesn't become the next Game Boy.
Oh yeah, and Codejunkies printed my strip! (see sig) Woohoo!

[Artemis]

Ok, so it's a working price. It'll be down by at least $100 when the retail date comes. I can see the PSP doing a heckuva lot better than the N-Gage.

[SSJPabs]

I've heard that the gaming side of the company is what is making Sony the most money so they would be smarter to continue with their most lucrative area of business.