A $30 price cut ($199 --> $169). I guess not too bad for handhelds given their lower prices, but I was expecting more like a $50 price cut to be honest. Oh well...got to offset those PS3 losses somehow I guess.
I didn't even know the PSP was 200, I thought it was 250, anyways, it'll probably gain some sales, I've always thought that the PSP was a very good machine, I just didn't like the mandate to buy a memory stick, that and the fact that it can't hold a lot of memory. What I would do is offer a 30 GB PSP, up the price to $300 to try and compete with the iPod and higher end entertainment devices. The big 16:9 screen would be great for portable movie enthusiasts
the biggest weakness of the psp has nothing to do with the hardware itself, which is amazing. its the way sony has marketed it and has prevented users from running homebrew applications, which is an utterly stupid move considering they just erased a big incentive for some buyers. everyone i know now loves the DS because they can load up a jillion old-school games on their SD cards and play them on the DS. sony has deprived its consumer base of even this simple yet immensely gratifying joy. i own a psp and think it's awesome, but i can't say i'm surprised or disappointed that sony is getting rocked by nintendo in both the handheld and the console wars (at least in terms of popular perception, since everyone seems to want a DS or a wii, and nobody seems to want a psp or a ps3). with any luck, this will teach all gaming companies that users like having freedom to make the most of the stuff they buy.
yeah, sony has great hardware and amazing potential but their software and all around execution (not to mention price) comes back to bite them. when your rival (nintendo) does so much more with less...then there is something wrong there
I really like my PSP. PS2 quality games on the go. They just released an update last week that offers a T-Mobile promotion too.
PSP is good hardware, but 169 is still too much. I agree with you RC; $50 would have been a nice cut.
That's probably close to what the PSP2 will be like. Although depending on when Sony decides to release it and at what price points, I wouldn't be surprised if maybe they went with 8GB or 16GB of built-in flash instead. I haven't had any experience with the Zune, nor have I really followed up on it. I'd imagine that it is a better music player than the PSP, although possibly not that great overall compared to other portable media players. For music, the PSP is really too big to carry around like an MP3 player, and I think the current maximum capacity in MS Pro Duos is 8GB, and that probably costs more to buy than the PSP itself. I guess you could link it up to a PS3 or PC via a wireless connection to stream music to it, but that would be a lot of work (and the PS3 connection is still limited to certain distances I believe). On the plus side, the music sounds fine (to me anyway), and the variety of formats supported is nice (MP3, WMA, AAC, etc.). Battery life is like ~10 hours or so when playing music, although I think that might vary on which codec you use; I think the PSP has dedicated hardware for decoding AAC files, and this uses less power than having the main CPU decode other formats. Just one of the interesting little tidbits about the PSP. Again, not that I've really checked out other devices, but when it comes to watching video, the PSP is probably the best device out there or close to it thanks to its screen (both the size and quality of it) and the variety of formats supported (as well as how easy it is to convert video files....well, IMO anyway). Again, you're limited by capacity though. Battery life here is about 3-4 hours for UMD videos IIRC; never really checked for playing videos off of the memory stick, although they should be a little longer. I don't really know enough about the Zune so that I can offer comparisons to the PSP. The PSP can surf the net if you're not aware of that, although I'm not sure if it would be all that practical IMO (really difficult without a keyboard and mouse). It is more of a cool thing to check out once or twice and never use again (unless you just NEED to surf the net and all you have is your PSP). There is a camera and GPS attachment available for the PSP, but they've only be released in Japan so far. I'm not sure if they're even all that great though, and the GPS software only works in Japan anyway IIRC (although I think there is some homebrew that allows for usage in the US). The PSP also supports LocationFree technology that is pretty cool, but the player that is needed to use this is kind of expensive IIRC. Obviously, the PSP's biggest advantage over the Zune is its ability to play games...and I guess homebrew stuff if you want to get into that (assuming you can find a way to get the "correct" firmware on your PSP). I'm not sure if you're interested in that kind of stuff. I would think this wouldn't be much of a decision if that was the case. Basically, if you want a music player, I wouldn't really recommend a PSP. If you want a video player, I'd recommend checking out the PSP, although another device might still be better depending on some of your preferences (how many videos you want, how good the quality must be, how much you'll also listen to music, etc.). Finally, if you'd actually like to play games on the PSP (and some of the games are of interest to you), and/or if you'd like to use it together with the PS3 (using Remote Play, or playing PS1 games on it), then the PSP might be the best option for you. Again, this is more so my opinion on the PSP itself and not so much about other devices, due to the fact that I'm not all that interested in portable media players to begin with.
Back to the topic at hand... FWIW, I've enjoyed my PSP, despite the numerous mistakes Sony has made in supporting it (security issues, poor/terrible marketing, no UMD support outside of UMD movies, etc.). I'm happy that they're finally cutting the price on the system, but as I've already said, I don't think a $30 drop will really help all that much (compared to how a $50 price cut to $149 would do anyway). That's a really nice price point, and I think that the PSP could really use it at this time. It certainly would go well with God of War PSP and some of the other titles that might be released in the near future for the system. Although as long as this game is any good, I guess I don't really care if Sony ever prices the PSP correctly: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wVdszZKVhik"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wVdszZKVhik" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
CORE SYSTEM is what... like... the system without ANY cables, or what? Yeah, Storm Surge, fill us in on the Zune, please. RC Cola: with all of these gamer threads, you're like a noisy puppy. WTF kind of a put down is that, anyway?
I already made it, but I forgot to put it in my sig: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=126731
