Sony says no PSP price drop this year
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted Oct 7th 2006 5:21PM
posted Oct 7th 2006 5:21PM
Sony product manager John Koller has said that consumers should not expect a drop in the price of the PSP anytime this year. Koller elaborated by saying that "we don't necessarily see the need to cut the price," and then mentioned using "broader value" in order to attract new customers, which is a reference to 110 new games which Sony hopes to launch on the PSP before the year is out. Whenever the topic of discussion comes onto the price of game consoles, we'll inevitably draw parallels to the equivalent price of said console's rival: in this case, the cheapest PSP package will sell for at least $70 more than the Nintendo DS for the rest of '06. In the past, Sony has tried to distance the PSP from the DS by repeatedly touting the device's multimedia features, so hopefully the 110 new games will make the company feel a little more secure. The "Play" in PlayStation Portable has always meant games, and multimedia features can only justify the PSP's higher price for so long.[Via PSP Fanboy]
110 new games? Does that even make sense? At least from the upcoming release schedules I've seen, there isn't anything close to that in the pipeline.
Perhaps this includes a bunch of games that would be done through the PSX emulator?
No, if it meant the games that will be on the PlayStation emulator, it would be a lot more. They are talking about the UMD games.
How can they possibly have 110 games coming out between now and December 31st though? Unless there are a bunch of previously unshown games, there isn't anything close to that number ready to come out.
I think Sony doesn't realize, their only advantage the last two generations was console base. Their brand is meaningless for most people, and is becoming synonymous with low quality (durability especially) multimedia convergence.
They lose console base (the highest number of units out there) and they lose their third party support and the whole game.
Nintendo is in the best position to profit this year, though I'm a little partial to the 360 as a second system.
That's more than one game a day for the rest of the year... Do they not realize we can't afford one game a day? They will all fail miserably, and then publishers will jump ship even more quickly to DS and Wii...
So that they can make a game a day for those consoles and jump ship back ? You have stupid twisted logic!
This might be a nit picky kind of thing but arent the prices currently 130 and 200 for the ds and psp respectively? Doesnt that come out to $70 more expensive?
10 years ago, sony was a trusted brand name that meant value to people. they basically had 2 parallel lines: the value line and the audiophile/boutique line. you could get, say, a barebones sony vcr or dvd player at a really fair price. but you'd get that brand name you trusted and which meant reliability and predictable levels of quality. and then at the other end of the spectrum you had their boutique line, which was comprised of cutting edge, hi-tech devices and luxury versions of things. whereas i used to trust sony, i find that they now annoy me. they seem to have no respect for their customers. they seem completely arrogant, self-important, and consumed with greed. they're like smarmy con artists at a turkish bazaar these days. rather than pricing their products appropriately and consistently, they are determined to charge as much as they can extort from people. and i hate how some folks call that "business." please... nintendo has worked to make each iteration of it's portable gaming machines cheaper and cheaper to manufacture. so they make a bigger and bigger profit as time goes by without raising prices. in fact, they LOWER them. and they are usually thinking of their customers. what does the consumer WANT? what is a reasonable price? how low can we get the price so that the maximum number of people will be able to afford it? how can we add value to all of our games and those of our partners by adding sub-quests and mini-games, etc? how can we appeal to different kinds of gamers? now THAT is what i call business. they have found a way to make lots of money, but without raising prices outrageously and without ignoring their customers. i can understand the idea of sony wanting to create a cutting edge machine. that kind of product has it's place - as a boutique item. but the way sony constantly shows such contempt for itsr customers is outrageous. they lie, they try to put ridiculously false spin on everything, they renig on their promises, they insult other companies openly, they proudly boast of not lowering prices or responding to customer wishes because "they don't have to", etc. this is awful. to be honest, i'm very curious about the PS3. but i won't be buying one. first, i can't afford the price. but price isn't the main reason. to illustrate, the PSP is a good example. i love my DS, but i had actually considered getting a PSP. i recently traded in all my gamecube games, my gamecube, etc. - so i had over $500 of credit. there were lots of games on display for the psp and i looked at every one of them. but i couldn't find even 3 that i wanted to play. the games available for it were so generic and what i would call lowest-common-denominator. tons of games by developers trying to make a quick buck, rather than trying to create innovative, fun, diverse products and to EARN a fair profit. very little innovation to be found. i really wanted to get excited about buying a PSP and i had the money for it, but i couldn't find games i wanted to play and i felt bad paying to support sony's megalomania. despite the fact that the PSP is technically superior to teh DS, i still think that overall the DS is a better made, funner machine than the PSP. so instead i got a new DS lite and 4 games - plus i reserved zelda for the wii and i still have enough money left over to completely pay for the Wii when it comes out. i'm not a "fanboy" except in the sense that i'm a fan of all game systems (in general), and i've had most of them at one time or another - ever since the old days of atari/odyssey/vectrex/colecovision etc on forward. but i've gone from liking sony to being offended by them. and despite its technical prowess, i won't be buying a PS3. if i got one for free, i'd happily take it. but i can't justify giving money to sony if there's any way to avoid it. that's the only way they will ever learn how to respect their customers.
If you can just summarize your points into a concise paragraph, it would be much appreciated. Most of us reading Engadget is not really interested in such a big chunk of comment text; instead we just skip to the next.
If, later some asks you to expand, it wouldn't be too late.
step 1) open mouth
step 2) insert foot
I agree with Tom.T. The PSP just doesn't seem to have any appeal to most people. I know what you mean about the feeling of genericness about the games. Before I get bashed upon I have a PS2 and I'd never trade it for anything out there at the moment.
Sony just seems to have got so far up their own *ss. Like saying people in Europe don't mind paying more or waiting longer. Yes that's right Sony can now tell us what we as consumers want.
They really dropped the ball with the Tape to Digital transition, what the hell was with minidiscs?! I'm also confused by their current direction in digital music, their high end player is one of the few out there without a colour screen. In the era of PVPs and iTunes Movies Sony just seem to be ignoring the trend.
The only worth while thing to have come out of Sony in the last 10 years are Blu-Ray discs. let's hope they don't screw that one up too.
cool
Why would they admit to dropping the price in the future? Simple economics tells us that people will hold off purchasing until such a price drop comes into effect. They will only announce a price drop when they are good and ready.
Sony is a global company that no longer gets it. It's obvious via the "CE-Oh No He Didn't" series of comments this week that they are just clueless.
The Nintendo DS is kicking their butts in their homeland, it's losing in the US, and it's losing over in the EU countries. True, the DS is games first... but honestly? So is the PSP. I know I bought my PSP for games first. The rest... extra.
But with hardly any games that's kept my attention, or lived up to the graphical hype of the PS2-ish graphics with every feature turned on (cough*yeah right*cough) it seems like with the PSP and PS3, Sony has gone from ever-hyping a product to just plain 'ol pissing people off with their string of arrogant comments and always trying to force everybody to their standards.
btw... the Mini-discs were huge in Japan. Just not that much elsewhere. Heck, I won't lie... I bought into the hype when I was there in Japan. Just seemed like a good, intermediate step from cassette to CD.
So we can expect a price drop in mid-December?
I'll buy a PSP when the price drops, and not before then.
I think the 110 games meant the amount of games starting from the January 2006 up to December 2006. There's no way it meant 110 games between now and until December 31st.
So, wait, Sony doesn't care about how much their system costs?! Whoa! When did this happen.
Here's what will happen, Sony will deny reports that a new PSP is coming, calling them "stupid", then later that day they will announce the new PSPDS. PlayStation Portable Dual Screenz(
Possibly referring to the fiscal year. So 110 games from now until Sept. 30th.
Sony just lost oogles of money on this battery thing. They probably won't be droping prices on much any time soon.
Another thought is that there is the expected HDD PSP on the horizon. Which may prevent them from droping the price. We may be looking at a spring of fall '07 release of the upgraded model, and then a price drop on that model within 6-12 months.
Silly Sony... they refuse to drop the price and decide to add pack-in's to "enhance" the value. Too bad most people don't care about the extra junk they're including.
If they want to get people's attention, sell the bare unit with power cord and battery for $150 and make up the difference when people buy accessories and software.
Sadly, when it comes to Sony, history continues to repeat itself as they refuse to learn lessons by analyzing their past mistakes. That's how they killed MiniDisc... by the time they dropped prices and opened up licensing, it was too little, too late.
Sony sez that and me sex "No psp for me" :P
110 new games? Wow, that should silence that tired DS fanboys' "no games" mantra.
Bring 'em on Sony!
seems really messed up....it kinda makes ya think that sony just doesnt want to make any money any more. its an interesting buisness scheme
Though 110 games sound outrageous to you guys, I believe he is referring to games release in ALL TERRITORIES, this includes Japan, EU, NA and so on. If I am right, this will only amount over 30 games per territory which is not hard to believe. Of course, he will also be counting the same game released in different languages as different games. This is the only way I see that'll make sense of the 110 figure.
If the psp is selling at a lose, it will be hard for the company to lower its price.
I bought and enjoy mine for the games. However, there simply aren't enough games. More titles please, is all that I ask as I have zero desire to purchase a DS. Lets all hope the PS1 games are an actual reality. At least then, there will be a Gran Turismo on the PSP...
Headline should read:
"Sony says no further PSP sales this year"
The Grand Master,
When it comes to gaming, I think Sony is in the same position Nintendo was in at the end of the SNES/beginning of N64 era. Think about it carefully for a second. Nintendo had a virtual monopoly over the console gaming market for two generations. By the third generation, the company expected its console to sell off of name alone and was so blinded by arrogance it lost touch with reality. Look how that turned out. Unlike Nintendo, though, Sony has another problem besides an absurd amount of arrogance. Their gaming devices, as of late, seem to have a bit of an identity crisis.
Take the PSP for example. What is it? A portable gaming device, a psuedo-DVD player, or an MP3 player? If it had been gaming only, I guarantee it'd sell far better than what it is now. Yes, it's nice to have an all-in-one device occasionally, however, it'd be even nicer if the all-in-one device could pull off each function in such a way to justify the price tag. Memory sticks don't have enough storage for any decent amount of MP3, and the UMD medium was doomed to fail from the get-go (not to mention being somewhat of a battery drain).
The PS3 seems to be suffering a similar dilemma. It's a psuedo-computer, gaming console, all-in-one media center, and Blu-ray player at the same time. The thing is, why buy a computer that can't be upgraded with better/more powerful hardware over time? Why buy a $600 psuedo media-center that doesn't have the functionality of a full fledge one? If it's a Hi-def movie player, why would I cop out on what I'm sure is a crap BD-ROM when I can buy the dedicated product for a PC for $250-$300 more with a guarantee that it'll survive several years without a single error (my DVD-ROM has been alive and kicking without incident since 2001)? Ask any group of people about what they thought of the PS2's DVD playback, and I guarantee that at least one of them will talk about disc-read errors coming from a machine that is less than 3 years old. Conversely, if I'm content with DVD's and I have no intention to buy a $1000+ glorified computer monitor with speakers ::cough:: HDTV::cough::, why would I want to pay a premium for a technology that will have limited use? If it's a gaming console, why was MS able to offer a product with comparable/insignificantly better performance (slightly more powerful GPU and a much better RAM setup) a year earlier with a $100-$200 cheaper price tag? All of those things I listed make those who think similarly to me feel that a PS3 isn't a good investment. It's hard to feel excited about a product that you can't even truly classify into one category. It's even harder to feel excited about a product when you had unpleasant experiences in terms of quality with other Sony-manufactured goods (afforementioned disc read errors, and yes, my PS2 started to suffer from them a year after it's purchase).
In regards to the PSP price drop, Sony can't afford to do it right now. Each PSP is sold at a loss (if I remember correctly ,it costs over $350 to make just one) and the PS3 may never sell for a profit. Consider the following. It costs roughly $750 to manufacture a PS3 Core SKU. In Japan, Sony intends to sell 20,000 at $425. Sony stands to lose roughly $6,500,000 on just that 20%. Let's assume that the PS3 premium doesn't cost much more than $750, so we'll use the same manfucaturing cost. Sony wil lose $12,000,000 on the remaing 80%. Let's figure the costs of the North American launch. Sony will lose $20,000,000 on the Core, and $48,000,000 on the Premium. Add the total manufacturing losses of all PS3's every region at launch and it comes to $86.5 million. That's just on 500,000 consoles folks. If Sony achieves a 2,000,000 person userbase by the end of the year with the same percentages of consoles made and with the Japanese price drop in mind, the cost will be $346 million; if the PS3 price drop expands to North America, it'll be much worse than that. If you don't see a PSP price cut, it'll be for that reason alone. The battery fiasco (which may cost Sony over $200,000,000) isn't helping either.
Oh, and before someone says anything, "Hey, he can do math!" I posted those figures to illustrate why Sony's financial situation wouldn't allow a PSP price cut, and because I figured no one else would. Furthermore, before some rabid idget pegs me as an MS fanboy, my comment was A) based off of what developers have stated (when all computational power is considered, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are roughly equal in capability) and B) MS launched it's console a year early because the company opted not to play the HD-movie game. If it had, the blue-laser shortages that have plagued Blu-Ray and HD-DVD would forced the Xbox 360 launch into spring of this year or could've delayed the launch until this time of year. Also, it'd raise the Xbox 360's price tag to be pretty close/dead even with the PS3's.
alot of people make it seem like the DS is only ahead of the PSP because it's cheaper, but people fail to realize the DS might actually be the gaming device more people prefer because it's fun :)