$450 PSP?

[A Black Falcon]

They're also more expensive in Japan. But we don't have an official price yet, do we?

But as GR says the difference is usually quite small, $10 or less. Which is why I said that $400 is a absolute minimum, and $450 is quite likely.

The two markets are very similar to each other, the main difference being that Nintendo is the only one in the handheld market. They're both video game markets. Both have/had a cocky Nintendo thinking that no one can touch them. The only way Nintendo will be able to maintain the number one spot is if they do two things: 1) Take Sony seriously and have an even more powerful handheld ready no more than six months after the PSP launches, and 2) Sony makes more than just their usual amount of mistakes and screw up big time. As much as I'd like that to happen, I don't think it will.

I'd say that Nintendo has a year at least before they have to release a new GB. No question. And between the strong limitations of the PSP and Sony's inevitable issues, I think that they will have at least that much time until the PSP begins to seriously challenge the GB in almost all of its market...

Haha, I love it when you people say that you're "tearing a post apart" when you have nothing more than poor debating skills and inane points on your side. It really brings a smile to my face.

I meant it in the sense of taking a paragraph and dividing it into small chunks.

Oh I see, so now you're saying that it wouldn't succeed in its own right, but that it would fail when compared to the regular consoles. So basically it would only succeed if you compared it with little Suzie and her lemonade stand.

It would do well enough to not be cancelled.

Oh please, not even I believed that when I was a super-biased Nintendo fanboy. You don't get 7+ years of clear market dominance based off of luck

Sure Sony had better marketing than Phillips (CD-i) (another attempt at that same thing by a giant in the industry) or 3D0/Panasonic (3D0), but yes, if the PSX had come out a few years earlier like those did it'd have suffered the same fate. You see, PSX just hit the sweet spot... as Trip Hawkins (3D0 founder) said. When they released the 3D0 at $700 it was the most powerful console around and had to be that expensive. But it didn't do 3d... and not too long later the PSX comes out much cheaper with strong 3d. That wasn't because Sony is so smart. It was luck. Luck that they started the PSX project when they did, luck that Nintendo got rid of them at just the right time so that when they finished the PSX on their own it'd be at just the right time to have that level of 3d... and then using marketing better than the aforementioned consoles sold it to the public. But make no mistake about it, luck had a very large role in the success of the PSX.

Oh yeah, and Sega misreading the market and thinking 2d was still good when people wanted 3d helped a lot too... as well obviously as Nintendo's mistaken faith in carts. Both of those things were more major lucky breaks for Sony.

That's the exact same thing they said about the PS2, that it wouldn't be just a games machine but rather an all-in-one device. Of course that wasn't really the case and people still looked at it as a games machine. Sony and MS are still trying to make that set-top box and they will probably eventually get there, but I'm sure the PSP will be seen as mainly a games machine.

And as I said, in the first year at least a lot of people DID get PS2s just to be DVD players! It's a fact, and it lost Sony a lot of money! This is the same way since it's a multifunction device. And this time they don't want to lose money to those people who use the PSP for its nongaming functions far more than its gaming ones, like they did with the PS2... seems reasonable to me.

And you are wrong. Sony from the very start has been VERY clear that this is a multifunction 'Walkman for the new generation' that will bring together multiple functions into one handheld... and I'm sure that you'll see this fact more clearly once they start showing exactly what the thing can do.

*gasp!* How can you say that? Yugo's are terrible cars! They were all over the place in Croatia (well duh), and they were so crappy. Especially if you're over 6 feet tall.

Were you actually in one? Oh, and what I remember best is that there weren't seatbelts in the back seat...

I love it how you've already found out the price of the PSP and its games even though we only have rumors and speculation. Great "facts".

The rumors seem quite solid and consistent on these features of the system.

Again, you have no facts on your side, only speculation. Okay, a better comparison would be the PSX coming out at the end of the SNES' life, but instead of being a nobody they were the most popular brand name in video games and had huge hits like FFVII out the door at launch.

So you admit your comparison was badly flawed. The SNES-PSX is better but still off... on battery life and game prices, most obviously.

I'm glad that you know so much about what kinds of handhelds people like. Although of course, you do know what the final system looks like, how much it'll cost, how much the games will cost, and the exact battery life, right? ... oh wait, you don't know these things and you're merely guessing and pulling most of the information out of your ass? Wow, that certainly changes things, doesn't it?

We don't know the final exact details, but it's good enough...

Yes, I'm a PSP fanboy because I'm not blind and biased like you are, even though I want Nintendo to succeed more than you do. I hope that's not all you got, Brian. Because it's wearing pretty thin.
The yen price is a rumor. It's a guess. And the Sony head was giving a guess as well. I'll wait until official word.

No one acting like you do wants Nintendo to succeed. And I think I'll believe the head of Sony Europe over your hopes for its immediate mass-market success.

Tell yourself whatever you need to sleep better at night, but remember what you said when the times comes. Your points are so laughable I don't even know why I bother responding to them. Difficult to develop for? Rumor, but if it's true it won't matter much. Just look at the PS2. And Sony knows it'll sell at a certain price point. Unless of course they've gotten too cocky.

I read that at Magicbox. And yes, if it's successful enough Sony can get developers to ignore it just like the PS2, you are right... but until it gets there I think it'll be an impediment to its success. And as for price the $400 one is reasonable for the kind of device the PSP actually is turning out to be, you know...

Yeah, because they couldn't do that with consoles.
Sure Nintendo will have the pre-school market like they've always had, but that's not where the money is. Adults aren't buying handheld gaming systems now for the same reason they didn't buy home consoles before the PSX arrived. Think about it.

More money is in the adult market than children's, true, but the younger market is still quite important for sure... and yes you are mostly right that adults don't get handhelds for the same reasons they didn't get consoles. But that attitude until recently was pretty accurate... it's only in the last while that the GB has finally tried to hit the adult market and while it is making some headway with the SP and the strategy/rpg lineup, it hasn't hit mass acceptance. Sony is trying to do it by releasing a handheld that also does other things that adults do want portable devices for... of course that was also the attitude that Nokia did with the N-Gage and Tapwave with the Zodiac, so I don't know how successful it'll be. The only difference will be because of Sony's muscle among developers and good marketing...