Who has a PSP?

[Great Rumbler]

I imagine that a lot of that is due to the relatively high price of the PSP.

[Dark Jaguar]

Just wait a bit, we'll see.

Okay so... what is Cartman like Shake from ATHF?

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, it definitely seems like the price is the biggest sticking point for a lot of people... it's getting lots of great press, but not sales to match the level of excitement in the media.

[OB1]

Game specialty stores are completely sold out, but places like Best Buy aren't. Looks like Sony's complete lack of marketing was a bad idea. Once word gets around and people see commercials for stuff like Wipeout, I expect to see the mainstream outlets selling out.

[A Black Falcon]

People looking at it in mainstream outlets are more likely to be turned off by the price, I think...

[Geno]

Just wait a bit, we'll see.

Okay so... what is Cartman like Shake from ATHF?

At times, he's a stupid asshole, just like Shake, while at other times, he's an evil genius. Basically, he'll go to any length to have what he wants, whether it means concocting an ingenius plan (like feeding a kid his parents to get revenge on him) or attempting something really stupid (like jumping off the roof of a house in an attempt to fly).

[Great Rumbler]

Didn't he also use stem cells to grow a new pizza place instead of giving them to Kenny, thus killing him once again?

[Geno]

Yes. That was the legendary news-making episode in which Kenny died "for good." He came back after about a year/season though.

[A Black Falcon]

PSP sales.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/04/07/...21853.html

PSP sells 600,000 in first week
PSP adds $150 million to Sony coffers in seven days; performance noted as good, not great by analysts.

Sony Computer Entertainment America put a figure on first week sales of its new PSP portable gaming system today. By doing so it confirmed what many analysts were already reading into first week sales--that the PSP was a solid hit, but no home run.

Click Here.

According to SCEA figures, PSP sales generated $150 million in sales in the week following its 12:01 AM North American launch on March 24. Divided by the unit's $249 price, the total means Sony sold just over 602,000 PSPs out of an initial batch of 1 million.

Sony would only say that the device sold "over half a million" units during its first 48 hours on the market, meaning it sold only approximately 100,000 units continent-wide over the next five days--at best. Still, Sony said the tally was enough to "further validate PSP as the most anticipated product of 2005 and an industry-altering force."

By comparison, in Japan the device needed three weeks to reach the 500,000 units sold threshold, according to USA Today.

In a prescient memo distributed before the Sony numbers were announced, Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Shawn Milne said, "We believe that the PSP launch was solid but likely did not live up to the high expectations of a complete sellout in 24 hours."

However, the PSP's long-term future remains very bright indeed. In its online edition, Forbes reported that Banc of America expects March 2005 game sales to spike by some 16 percent--much of that courtesy of the PSP. "As sales of the PSP gain momentum and mass-market adoption rates increase, we expect software sales to broaden," says Banc of America, according to Forbes. Long term, the firm's analysts reportedly believe demand will "outpace supply."

500,000+ in the first two days, and 600,000 at the end of week one. That means 100,000 at most in the next five days, as they say...

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm, great is good, but AMAZING would be great.

[Great Rumbler]

I wish Nintendo, or someone, would release some DS sales figures for NA.

[A Black Falcon]

We've seen some numbers, I think...

[Great Rumbler]

Number for like the first week/month, but not much more than that.

[A Black Falcon]

http://consoul.blogspot.com/2005/04/unlo...uture.html

Huh... the PSP was deliberately underclocked (final clock speed: 220mhz; earlier preliminary speed: 330mhz), almost certainly in order to save battery life...

[OB1]

Yeah, one of the programmers at Rockstar Leeds (their handheld division) told me about that. So once a better battery comes out, PSP games will look even better. Neat, huh?

[A Black Falcon]

I don't know, you think they'll manage to make a new battery that's 50% better than the current one?

[OB1]

Eventually, yes. Definitely.

[A Black Falcon]

If you say so, but who knows... battery technology doesn't increase at a very fast rate at all.

[OB1]

Lithium ion battery technology has been getting better and better each year. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Surprising, huh?

[A Black Falcon]

By a tiny degree. Not much. I've read a bit about batteries, and know that battery tech is advancing VERY slowly... by the time it's that much better, I'd expect the PSP will be a dead system, unless some major innovation in batteries comes along in the next couple of years.

[OB1]

Again, you know nothing about the advances made in the past few years. Sony knows what they are doing, and you will see better batteries soon. There's a reason why the full potential of the system hasn't been tapped yet! Otherwise they would have just toned down the specs and saved money!

Silly, naive little man.

[A Black Falcon]

I know plenty, OB1. Your excuse for anyone who disagrees with you is either "you are stupid" or "you are ignorant", but it's almost never true...

[OB1]

Great rebuttal.

[A Black Falcon]

Remember that article I posted a few weeks back about that new battery that maybe in some circumstances increases battery life for some things under some conditions? Yeah, battery life increases go like that... I've definitely read, multiple times, about how compared to computers batteries are improving at a very slow rate, and about how portable electronics are becoming increasingly hobbled by the comparitively slow progress of batteries...

[OB1]

That's because most portable electronics use disposable batteries, genius. Lithium Ion batteries are improving all of the time, with higher power ones getting smaller and smaller on a fairly regular basis.

[A Black Falcon]

As I said, by degrees. Not by massive leaps like is happening with electronics.

[OB1]

Nothing compares to the technical leaps in electronics. Nothing.

[A Black Falcon]

And that's why the speed is throttled in the PSP. :)

[Great Rumbler]

So, if you have a better battery the PSP's processor will run faster?

[OB1]

No. When a better battery is released, developers will be able to take full advantage of the system. If Sony thought that no better battery would be released within a few years of the system's lifespan then they wouldn't have made it that powerful. Simple as that.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, either that or they just found it easier to leave in the processor they had than changing it. :)

[OB1]

Yeah that's right, they just "left it in" even though it costs so much.