Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 5:00 am in , , . Catching up with expectations, Sony is announcing today that it is cutting the price of its PlayStation Portable gaming handheld from $199 to $169. Analysts expected Sony to do so after the close of its March 31 fiscal year, presumably because it has the potential to hurt the Japanese company s already weak bottom line.
Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, told me in an interview that Sony has shipped more than 25 million PSPs to stores now and the high volumes are allowing it to become more efficient in manufacturing. Consequently, he said, Sony can pass on its cost savings to consumers.
It s about time, since the price cut had been talk about for some months as a necessary step for closing the gap with Nintendo.
Competitively, the PSP Core Pack will now be priced closer to the rival Nintendo DS, which at $129 had sold through more than 35 million units as of the end of December. Tretton said that, after two years on the market, the PSP is achieving Sony s goal of expanding the handheld gaming market to older console gamers who didn t play Nintendo handhelds.
The average age of the 7.
5 million PSP owners in North America is 24, and only 10 percent of those are DS owners, Tretton said.
We have done a nice job carving out a new consumer, he said. We don t want to limit that because of price and want to reach down to the younger consumer.
We re going after the teen and the tween (between child and teen-age) markets.
Asked how many of the 25 million units have sold through, Tretton noted that in North America, a little more than 8 million units have shipped into stores and about 7.5 million have sold through.
He said that sell-through on a worldwide basis is more like 20 million.
There are more than 250 titles on the PSP now, with the top hits including Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, SOCOM US Navy Seals, and Madden.
Tretton declined to comment on rumors that Sony might be readying a high-end version of the PSP with more capabilities or a redesign.
But he said that if you look at how the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 evolved, it s clear that it does change form factor.
There are more than 450 movies available on Sony s Universal Media Disc format which the PSP uses. Critics have said that the format is a failure.
But Tretton defended it, saying that nine million movies have been sold in North America. He said that the movie companies are releasing more appropriate titles now at better prices ranging from $9.99 to $19.
99.
The PSP debuted in March 2005 at $249 in North America, about four months after the debut of the $149 Nintendo DS. The PSP has a 16:9 widescreen display and the ability to play movies, music, games and access the Internet.
[You can , or from your own site.] BUY BUY BUY BUY!!
this is a garbage system.
but please buy due to a low price.
yeah im not good at games either but im going to buy the xbox360 elite when that comes out.
plus im getting the ps3 any day now on top of the wii and the ds lite.
im an older person, i suck at games.
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