Sony Reveals Date and Price of Euro PSP

The PS2 launch was timed after a fantastic media campaign which primarily used Final Fantasy pre-rendered movies to convince people that its Reality engine made the Dreamcast look like a poor cousin, despite having very strong titles out for it. With a 3rd quarter release that will have the next Xbox AND Nintendo console snapping at its heels, do you honestly think that most people will still hand over close to £200 when it could pay for real next-gen technology? I'm not so convinced.

I personally think that once the decent titles start coming out for the DS along with seasonal game bundles with AAA titles that will be launced when the PSP finally rears its head, it will have a very hard battle on its hands if it retains this price.

And as for those UMD movies, who in their right mind is going to buy Spiderman 2 AGAIN, at a higher price than the full-blown 2 disk Collectors DVD sets? I'm not convinced that there is a market for UMD movies in this country at all.

Yeah... didn't sell well at launch, did it? In fact, it too suffered from an over-inflated price, ridiculously late release date, and a lack of stock.

The difference between this and PS2, is PS2 was a new, high-powered machine that used what you already had as well as new stuff. Now this, this is asking you to re-get the films, the games, and not even use your old memory cards, on a unit that won't even last the London to Edinburgh train. Yeah, great deal.

High prices are the reason I only got a PS2 last year. I refused to pay the stupid price Sony had stuck on it. I rmeber paying 250 pounds for my PSone and I wasn't gonna do it again for Sony product

The reason why it will be difficult for Sony is that PSP is handheld. On top of that NDS offers more and opens the doors to existing and more importantly non gamers. Also with many publishers looking for an easy PSP meal ticket some will not make the effort to attract new customers by puking out the same PS2 stuff.

Currently the cheapest you can buy a DS for in the u.k is 84 pounds (www.gbax.com) and PSP from the same place is about 130. I'm not gonna pay for a PSP until 2006 when the price comes down a little.

I have found it lame that PSP is relying on the this media lark to attract and while not totally a bad idea think the UMD movies will only sell to the fanboys. For 230 I could get a 20gb Archos to hand all those media tasks on the move. Sony should be focusing on the gaming but perhaps they think PSP is weaker without them options.

This christmas will prove to be interesting, since Nintendo said they had a lot of females buying at the DS launch. Perhaps Nintendo are onto something. I think in japan you are more likely to have women involved in the creative process of some DS games.

PSP however, Sony have a lot to learn. Had they done I cheaper hand held PSone (and cut out the media options) it would have made more sense financially. They could have still used the UMDs for games too and no one would have really cared because DS and it would have been the first 3D capable handhelds. On handhelds graphics aren't as important (though this is changing slightly now) but they will reach their graphical peak quickly and perhaps too fast now thanks to Sony. In the long run though PSP should have a long life next to DS but the price must come down.

I find this stuff quite funny. First you have the DS, which everyone claims it the best thing ever created. Then the PSP comes out in the US and is claimed to be the best thing ever. Then people realise how damn expensive the PSP is and their opinion suddenly back-flips back to the DS!

I'm not commenting directly to what anyone in this forum has said, just forums in general. DS rocks. DS sucks. PSP rocks. PSP sucks. DS rocks again.

Anyway, I liVe in Australia where the PSP has just been announced (Australia is a PAL territory and we usually get things at the same time as the UK) - they was AU$429 for the thing! The DS is $199! The frickin' Gamecube sells for $149 over here, the Xbox $249 with a game!

WHO THE HELL IS STUPID ENOUGH TO BUY A $429 PORTABLE CONSOLE??????

so how much do the games cost?
a quick search on the web and I find gameplay having psp games listed at £39.99. that's a bit much don't you think?
I think I read comments from american psp owners complaining about the price of games and how EA are selling all their games at the higher price point. so it looks like it will be the same here then.

I like the psp. I think it looks really good and it looks like it could have really excellent games. I like the idea of a portable media player but I don't see the point in buying one to watch films. if I don't have a decent sized screen, surround sound, a comfy chair and cold beer then I'm not interested in watching films.
And of the other features. ok the music part is fair enough.but can it really display your digital camera pictures? if only it used sd cards instead of those damn memory sticks!!

But by the time sony launch the psp in september. how many units will nintendo have sold of the ds? They've already sold a lot and over the summer it looks like they are getting their act together and releasing games. and the games they are releasing look like they are going for more than one crowd. the games for the psp look too much the same as the original playstation type of game.
too many driving games.
too many football games.
too many sports games.
I'm just not sure who they are aiming it at. nintendo seem to be trying to bring in new players with stuff like nintendogs and that electroplankton thing (if they ever release it outside japan).
But on the other hand, by september there should be a lot of games, so it won't be one of those sparse launches like the ds has had (or the n64! do you remember the n64 launch!! that one defined the word barren).

Europe could be very tricky for sony. a high price console stuck between a cheaper rival that has a lot of good games and a massive head start and xbox 360.

I think this one is going to be interesting.

Indeed. Pity it's so late. What was the name of that site with cheap DS?

Hopefully I should be able to get around to buying some games during August.

Before we all get bent out of shape over SCE using pre-renders to peddle the power of the PS2, can we all just take stock of how this industry works?

I don't have those movies to hand to revisit them, so I can't be 100%, but I would guess they were created on the PS2 dev kit using the prototype hardware. Sure, they weren't real-time and could therefore afford to be anti-aliasing and higher than TV-res.

It happens. Let's take a very recent example. It involves a bunch of American Football players, a filled stadium and some snow.

You think for one moment that this is real-time, in-game graphics, or an interpretation of what the Xbox360 might be able to do - pre-rendered?

Microsoft is spoiling the party we're having with perfectly good current gen - the Xbox is arguably just coming into its own, and while the PS2 is apparently looking aged (god forbid there be jaggies!), the middleware is very mature and the developers familiar with it.

So, to recap. Hyping; Sony do it. Microsoft do it. If Nintendo had some wit about it, it would do it. It happens. It's business, and it's not always in our (the gamer's) best interest.

Oh, and don't blame Sony or PS2 for the Dreamcast's downfall. Sega are clear majority stakeholders in that holy fsck up.

As for PSP in Europe - what can I say. Three more little words for Sony;

GUN. FOOT. BANG.

The Emotion Engine was hyped quite a lot, but from what I can remember a pool tech demo was Sony's main focus along with FF.



I just can't believe that that is anything other than an in-game shot.

Some of the other screens that Lupos posted from IGN clearly show a lack of anti-alising and other visual flaws that would not be present in a pre-rendered screenshot from the current generation, let alone the next.

The graphics aren't that much better than the games we're seeing on present-gen systems. For example in Resident Evil 4 or some parts of the new Zelda. Of course developers will hype what their systems can do, and I'm sure on MTV or at E3 or whatever M$ will show some quite amazing videos. But they will have to be on-par with these shots in-game for punters to be convinced.

Microsoft wants to rush to the next generation to attempt to claim a greater proportion of the market in terms of systems and new software in development and, I believe, in order to make system development uneconomical for it's competitors, especially Nintendo. The big N will have problems keeping pace if M$ wants a new system every three - four years.

The link for the site is

www.gbax.com

What they have is the japanese DS but I haven't seen it on sale anywhere in the u.k this cheap.

The price has dropped over the last few month.

But surely have a go at SPOnG's latest competition first? :)

A lot of us agree with you dude. Sony are aiming for that run up to xmas launch window but at that price many will be put off. On top of that we all know Sony hate to drop prices of their product, this would be hard for them to do perhaps since they are now losing money on PSPs like MS did with Xboxs produced.

I was always in the DS camp anyway but I have said I intend to buy both DS and PSP. Anyone with half a brain on their shoulders can see what the DS is already doing for the big picture of gaming. If they can't then they can continue to play the same old crap into their graves.

this is pretty common practice, nintendo did it (montage vid with the origanl mature looking link fighting ganon footage) and so did M$ (tha video of the chic dancing and the giant robot mimicking her movements). it is just how it works cause they proabably wont have a FINAL dev kit unill the end of the summer when they can go and really get things as polished as possibel in the run up to launch. I remember when the first xbox came out there was alot of talk about how M$ was getting peoepl developign games way early than most new system launches cause they gave out dev kits and then gave liek monthly upgrades right up untill the very end so that the end time was just spending polishign and refining instead of makign a whole game. I imagioen its a similar situation now.

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i dont know i am going to have to find the vid link but i saw a vid were it should them playing ball then after the play it cut to the play selecting screen. But, i could be wrong i gonna have a look.

your not wrong, they did show menu navigating (play calling) but it was also a mock up. i think it mentions that in the ign thing, the menu i tshows int he vid has six plays to choose from at once, but they may change that its still early in development.

also on a barely related note, i was really happy that they showed it druing the very first round of comercials, i only had to watch the pain that is espn for liek 5 minutes.
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over further inspection the LUPOS is correct.
to view the video i went to gametrailes and found it which is a usefull trailer site.

gametrailers.com that is.