If you’ve been following the recent Su Doku all-newspaper bandwagon jamboree, you’ll be aware that it’s the most exciting thing to happen in newsprint puzzles since the cryptic crossword explosion of the late nineteenth century. We’re afraid that while we have tried to enjoy Su Doku, we haven’t quite been able to get into the spirit of it – it’s the nagging feeling that it’s a sort of time bomb of death-bed regret. But we’re happy to concede that this might just be because we’re not great with numbers and it takes us ages.
In any case, we are aware that it’s Japanese (and we normally like Japanese things) and that it’s pretty much the trendiest thing that a trendy, upwardly mobile young Londoner can be seen doing on the tube in the mornings. So it seems only natural that it should be teamed up with something else that is also Japanese, and the last word in ostentatious tube journey fashion: the PSP.
Sony Europe has revealed that it's working on Go! Su Doku with a view to a Christmas time release. Containing an enormous 1,000 puzzles, it offers, by our calculations, the opportunity to waste a truly impressive 60,000 minutes of your life, as well as all manner of collaborative variants of the game which take advantage of the PSP’s excellent WiFi capabilities. It will also allow players to use the Sony downloadable content network, so in theory, once you’ve spent every waking hour of 2½ months completing the puzzles included with the game, you could go on and download an extra one each day, just like you get in the newspaper. It’s pretty exciting news for Su Dokists everywhere, and will also make an excellent ambassador for the PSP – for example if you want to show off your new gadget to your grandmother without making her watch you beat prostitutes to death in GTA: Liberty City.
In any case, we are aware that it’s Japanese (and we normally like Japanese things) and that it’s pretty much the trendiest thing that a trendy, upwardly mobile young Londoner can be seen doing on the tube in the mornings. So it seems only natural that it should be teamed up with something else that is also Japanese, and the last word in ostentatious tube journey fashion: the PSP.
Sony Europe has revealed that it's working on Go! Su Doku with a view to a Christmas time release. Containing an enormous 1,000 puzzles, it offers, by our calculations, the opportunity to waste a truly impressive 60,000 minutes of your life, as well as all manner of collaborative variants of the game which take advantage of the PSP’s excellent WiFi capabilities. It will also allow players to use the Sony downloadable content network, so in theory, once you’ve spent every waking hour of 2½ months completing the puzzles included with the game, you could go on and download an extra one each day, just like you get in the newspaper. It’s pretty exciting news for Su Dokists everywhere, and will also make an excellent ambassador for the PSP – for example if you want to show off your new gadget to your grandmother without making her watch you beat prostitutes to death in GTA: Liberty City.
Companies:
SCEE
Read More Like This
Comments
fluffstardx 3 Oct 2005 14:14
1/6
I imagine it'd work better on the DS. Then again, I'd rather it didn't keep infringing on everything I do...
Out of interest, does anyone have sales figures to compare how PSP is selling in each region? A friend of mine wanted a comparison of sales to people for each region...
Out of interest, does anyone have sales figures to compare how PSP is selling in each region? A friend of mine wanted a comparison of sales to people for each region...
tyrion 3 Oct 2005 17:57
2/6
fluffstardx wrote:
Out of interest, does anyone have sales figures to compare how PSP is selling in each region? A friend of mine wanted a comparison of sales to people for each region...
I've been tracking the Japanese hardware sales figures for a while now and can say than PSP has sold 1,767,623 units since launch. That's according to Media Create, the Japanese version of ChartTrack.
You can check the weekly hardware sales at the bottom of this page - they are updated on a Thursday.
For comparison, the following figures are for the period of the DS being available in Japan (one week before PSP).
Game Boy Advance - 29,058
Game Boy Advance SP - 989,270
Game Boy Micro - 170,306
GameCube - 356,052
Nintendo DS - 3,193,879
PlayStation 2 - 2,127,040
PSP - 1,767,623
Xbox - 13,122
As you can see, the DS is kicking ass and taking names. However, the PSP is selling better than everything else combined except the DS and PS2. That will change as the Micro is available for longer, the numbers above are up to and including the Micro's first week of release.
I don't have any figures for the US or Europe. Anybody out there?
more comments below our sponsor's message
YenRug 3 Oct 2005 18:39
3/6
tyrion wrote:
As you can see, the DS is kicking ass and taking names. However, the PSP is selling better than everything else combined except the DS and PS2. That will change as the Micro is available for longer, the numbers above are up to and including the Micro's first week of release.
Thing is, for most of the last few months, the DS has been outselling the PSP and PS2 combined, in fact some weeks it's been outselling everything else on the sales chart combined. In light of that, claiming the PSP has been outselling everything else combined does seem a little paltry.
I don't have any figures for the US or Europe. Anybody out there?
European figures aren't so hot for the DS at the moment, though that could be as much down to post-launch sales of the PSP, need to give it a few months to see where the systems settle down to, relatively.
US figures, well, if you could find a single set of sales figures that was truly reliable I think people would report on them more. You seem to get different charts depending on the retailer and there is no one sales figure compiler who reports on the majority of stores.
tyrion 4 Oct 2005 13:20
4/6
YenRug wrote:
Thing is, for most of the last few months, the DS has been outselling the PSP and PS2 combined, in fact some weeks it's been outselling everything else on the sales chart combined. In light of that, claiming the PSP has been outselling everything else combined does seem a little paltry.
That's why I quoted the sales for everything over the period of the DS's lifetime in Japan. If I just quoted the last week I have figures for (Micro launch week) then the figures would be off since there was a large spike in PSP and DS sales that week.
Overall since the launch of the DS, the PSP has accounted for 20.44% of hardware sales in Japan and the DS 36.94%. In the Micro launch week, PSP: 20%, DS: 20.57%.
YenRug wrote:
European figures aren't so hot for the DS at the moment, though that could be as much down to post-launch sales of the PSP, need to give it a few months to see where the systems settle down to, relatively.
European figures are hard to get hold of. ChartTrack compile them but don't make the available on their website. You have to subscribe to see them.
YenRug wrote:
US figures, well, if you could find a single set of sales figures that was truly reliable I think people would report on them more. You seem to get different charts depending on the retailer and there is no one sales figure compiler who reports on the majority of stores.
Is there no central monitoring body in the US? Doesn't the ESA monitor this stuff? Who do publishers turn to to get this sort of data?
The above problems we've found in getting hold of sell-through (to consumers) data is probably why hardware manufacturers quote sell-in (to retailers) data in press releases. None of which helps in estimating the size of the market in terms of player count.
fluffstardx 4 Oct 2005 14:19
5/6
So, as I thought; looks like the DS is loved in Japan, while us materialistic, socially-obsessed Westerners love the PSP... None surprise of the year there!
config 4 Oct 2005 15:34
6/6
Tyrion wrote:
Is there no central monitoring body in the US?
The lack of decent US charts is a fscking joke.
However, there does appear to be one organisation trying to tackle the problem; NPD Funworld. Not sure if it provides software, hardware or charts for both.