PSP Priced!

Personally i believe that price tag is too high for the mainstream user. With the DS touted at around £80-£100 there is no real contest there.
Ill buy one, imported probably, but wether they are aiming at new market or trying to steal Nintendos thunder is debatable but i feel handhelds need a low price tag for both hardware and software and the PSP is meeting neither. Also, can it attract PS2 owners with ports of games they already have?
It will sell of course but will it outsell the DS, dunno, but it will be interesting indeed.

It's official: PSP is the new Atari Lynx. They look the same (ish) and are being released at the same price! Is California Games a launch game too?

£180 was a bit more expensive than I was hoping for, but it's still not official, I guess.

If the current hand-held pricing rumours (DS £80-100, PSP £180) turn out to be true, then I'm gonna have a real dilemma. I have always bought consoles which, IMO, will provide me with the best games. But, the quality of games in the PSP release schedule will need to be significantly superior to the DS's for me for me to choose it over DS.

I'll wait to see what new releases are on the horizon before committing.

It will have to come down to games at the end of the day. Handhelds have always had a gimmicky/novelty edge to them but they have raised the bar this time round i believe. I hope both release quality titles but if PSP starts churning out ports then ill sell and move on. The same goes for DS, as soon as it starts churning out twee, kiddie crap then it too will go.

I dont mind a bit of each of these, infact id quite welcome some older ports such as OOT, but i hope they dont bombard us with it.

PSP cant afford to churn out alot of ports, the handheld is more expensive than a slimline PS2 and i certainly wouldnt pay £40 for a title i can pick up on the PS2 for a tenner.

But you are REALLY not comparing like with like. With PSP, at maybe £80-100 more, you are getting a MP3 player, and a movie player too. And the PSP screen is plenty big enouugh to make this a serious player in the portable movie market.

Plus just holding the two side by side the PSP has a much "sexier" feel to it. After E3, I was a big fan of DS, I thought it was a bolder, more innovative gaming statement. But back in the "real world" I know which my money is going on... has gone on already really, since we bought one for SPOnG.




Personally, I think it's a bit of both. I think they'd like to, and they will take some users of Nintendo. I have friends with GBASPs, who do not care (or even know) who makes the console, and who will gladly switch to another manufacturer if they perceive that it is better value for money. And PSP looks so god-damned sexy.

Plus, there's a whole new untapped market, who will be attracted by the ability to watch porn on the beach, or watch movies while on the stepper at the gym (that's me! I can step for hours longer if I'm not bored).



Well, that's an interesting question... and it's being held as a criticism of the PSP ONLY because it's the first handheld that has been capable of what its big brother can do. If Nintendo and Microsoft were itn he same position, you'd see Xbox ports on the Microsoft handheld, and GameCube ports on the Nintendo one. No one is suggesting (OK, some particularly jaundiced individuals might) that the PSP will ONLY have PS2 ports.



I've already stated here before that I think it WILL outsell DS. But I have been wrong before. DS is a great machine, but it just looks too much like a toy for my liking. Of course, that may well appear to some sections of the market.

The ONLY thing I don't want to see is one company achieve total dominance.

I totally agree with the Doctor.

I would love the DS to prevent Sony getting it's hand in another pie, but due to the same reasons as the Doctor specified, I can't see the DS being the dominant handheld, especially in Europe, this time next year.

Note that this will stimulate the Evil M$ to release a competing handheld or buy the Gizmondo brand and it will then try to monopolise this market.

I would really like to see a joint agreement between Sony and Nintendo. A Sony system with Nintendo's ideas and games would be perfect.

The MP3 feature is actually very attractive to me. I could sell my current portable player, and it would mean I would have less to bring on my daily train journey.

But I'm not convinced about the Movie player feature. I am simply not willing to buy a UDP version of a DVD I already own. It would be great if they could come up with some kind of encrypted blank UDP media (or Memory Stick Duo, which has happened in Japan) that can compress and encode your original DVDs (not games). Whether this is realistic, from a technical and policing perspective, is another thing.

I kinda agree about the games thing. I wouldn't really want to pay double for two versions of the same game. But I probably will!
I know THUG 2 is being ported over, and I can idle away a couple of lifetimes on any Tony game. Same goes for Pro Evo, especially with wireless multiplayer. But do I want a handheld version of Ico 2? No way. I'm really looking forward to it, but on the PS2. The first was an immersive, wonderful experience. Not something I think you can replicate on a hand held. Sony should, and hopefully will, look carefully at what will succesfully transfer to the handheld gaming style. Some of their hits will translate, others simply won't.
As for nintendo not porting over games. Are you kidding! Look at their launch. MArio 64, Metroid Prime. Yeah, I know they are reworkings, or entirely new games (umm, not much of a point here, I guess), but they have a history of translating previous generation games onto their handhelds. just look at the Mario titles. I guess quite a few people on these boards will probably have already played Mario 64. I hope we see more of the original content from Nintendo and not a load of Pokemon Fondle games.
Anyhow, I'll be getting them both on launch day (won't import, I like the build up to getting my hands on em here) and I'll reserve judgment til I've had a chance to fiddle with them myself.
Oh, and back to the origainal topic, the fanboys have already started on Amazon. Hilarious stuff.

I am disappointed by the DS's grahics although they look okay they are not near as good as the PSP's. But i dont think i can face another round of run of the mill games, TBH im fed up with it. The PSP is offering nothing but portable playstation games, nothing new, nothing interesting and nothing i really want.

Again though, the DS is porting games that are no longer on the shelves. N64 games can be classed as retro at the moment, PS2 games cant.

Yeah, I agree with you. But I also agree with the good Doctor, in that if Ninty could port over Super Mario Squirt from the cube, it sure as hell would. And a load of other games. It means it cuts down on development time and investment. That'll probably be where sony (and EA I'll wager) make their biggest profits, flooding the market with cheap and easy ports.

Don't think I'm Ninty bashing either. I've got a cube and love it dearly (especially and worringly my bongos). I just want to see more types of game like the Yoshi DS game being developed (looks pretty good, what I've seen of it) and less of their NES classics (I mean DK is good, but alone for 15 quid, really???)

As for sony, yeah, I expect a lot of ports, but also there is some hope. luminares (spelling?) looks quality and the mercury game (sorry, forgot name) is very intriguing. In an ideal world we would have those and no Madden Y2K5 Street, but that ain't gonna happen.

Best guess is that the PSP will be very much like the PS2. Have a few classic games (Ico, Fur Fighters, Amplitude), a few more high profile ports (Tony Hawks, GTA, GT4, Tekken) buried under a pile of crap. But isn't have the fun discovering these little gems?

It's Mercury ;-)

ahh, cunning.

No wonder I couldn't remember it.

180 quid is too much but it might work in Sony's favour, if they are aiming for the same PS2 owners (which is also where Nintendo are aiming, older gamers with money).Only problem with that is that they are releasing too much product and confusing the customer (PSX even though it hasn't reacghed EU/U.K,) and with PS2s now going for an 100 quid swan song it could back fire.

DS still also has the backward compatitbilty option which will be a god send to a lot of people who hate selling their games. If this is the true PSP price I'll be hold off buying one for a while (for a price drop, only problem is Sony take ages to cut their prices, if ever).
This may change though if have the money.

Well with the outlandish titles lavished on modern games, it is actually surprising.

No doubt some marketing department will change it to:

Mercury: Liquid Metal Under Siege

If you want to play mp3 on your PSP you must buy a $US 100 1Gb memory stick , so it would be $240.
Its not a good deal for me.
I am not agree for the UMB movies, i wouldnt buy a movie to see it in my PSP if i can see it in a high quality TV, Its like i would prefer to see a movie recently lunched from a dvd found in the black market with a terrible resolution than going to the theaters.
They have to launch exclusive movies for the PSP often so that Sony can say this is plus reason to buy the PSP.
And if you need to touch a "sexy" device, there are some nice Game boy SP shaped as inflatable doll around the market.