Sony drops PSP Go price to $199 ahead of holiday season

[Jos]

Sony is giving its PSP Go gaming handheld a much-needed shot in the arm today with the announcement of a price cut from $249 to $199. The move comes just in time for the holiday shopping season and puts the device at just $30 more than Nintendo's DSi XL, $50 more than the DSi, and $70 more than the DSi Lite. The company may face some in-house competition as well, though, with the PSP-3000 currently selling for $169.

The PSP Go represents a major shift for Sony in the handheld arena as it attempts to move away from packaged media in favor of digital downloads. Besides reduced distribution costs, the move would, in theory, give Sony a better fighting chance against the used games market and piracy. But while the idea sounds good on paper – we’ve seen how well some iOS games are selling – execution apparently fell short of customers’ expectations. After all, the PSP Go doesn’t bring much to the table besides a smaller, lighter build and more memory, while dropping support for UMD media and carrying a smaller games library for a heftier price tag.

In August, market researcher NPD estimated the PSP sold just 79,400 units compared to around 140,300 a year earlier. Sony hasn't revealed exact sales figures for the Go, but the device is widely believed to be a flop, with a separate study from tracking firm Media Create putting the number at 23,455 for the first three months of 2010. By comparison, the Nintendo DS – including all its variants – sells upwards of 250,000 units each month.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40848-sony-drops-psp-go-price-to-199-ahead-of-holiday-season.html

 

[ional10]

It's not a bad price, but the DSi XL is still better value for money and comes with a plethora of games, the sony PSP GO never really took off unfortunately, they left people with UMD disks hanging about.

 

[edison5do]

Well, holidays come close = Prices go Down, I hope that PC parts go the same way.

 

[Cueto_99]

I've never found attracting the psp, sure, it has great graphics, but what else? Sony should focus on a better marketing technique and try to include other features if they wish to compete and stand a chance with the Nintendo 3Ds...

 

[freythman]

I might buy it at $100, but at $200, I could just save up another $30 and get an entry level iPod touch. Then I'd have access to all of the apps on the App Store.

If they didn't remove support for UMD, and dropped it to $150 or less, I might consider it.

 

[Rod2709]

It still pretty high, if they want to bump the sales, they should drop it to about $150... heck i would buy one at that price.

 

[Micael]

The price is still very high...sure it's a nice product, but for that price or a little above i can buy myself an Xbox 360 or a PS3...or even more PC components :s.

 

[citac]

i wouldnt buy it for 100 bucks to be honest, terrible design by sony who ever made this thing should of got fired.

 

[Basher]

I still have and occasionally use my PSP1000, but don't see myself ever upgrading to a new portable gaming device. Smartphones are somewhat taking over the reigns of the standard 90's type portable gaming device.

Sony needs to introduce something unique, such as Nintendo is doing, to capture their share of the market. Otherwise, I personally don't see their success in the portable gaming market.

 

[LinkedKube]

Although I really wanted a psp go. Im not going to touch it. They already admitted that this was a science experiement of sorts.

 

[bioflex]

Rod2709 said:
It still pretty high, if they want to bump the sales, they should drop it to about $150... heck i would buy one at that price.

me too buddy.....$ 150 is the best price in my opinion....i would add a penny more for device like this....just give me a psp with a umd drive and i would be fine.

 

[buttus]

It's a good price but still a bit pricey for a portable game system.

 

[princeton]

No thanks. I'll spend the extra bit and get an ipod touch.

 

[yukka]

Its a terrible idea and it deserves to be consigned to the bargain bin or the dustbin. Slow wifi connection, all games purchased as via the net and no second hand market. Absolutely awful. Glad it failed.

 

[bugejakurt]

Reasonably priced, and a good move from Sony to address the PSP's decrease in popularity lately. Honestly I've not seen much PSP Go's on the market, and believe Sony needs to overhaul the PSP System and certainly reduce the prices of its games.

 

[natefalk]

I would be more interested in the PSP Go if it had the UMD drive or if it could be used as a cell phone. Otherwise, it just isn't that interesting to me. Who wants to wait an hour to download a game?

 

[Wagan8r]

Hmmm... a PSP Go, or a 1GB GTX 460?

Let me think...

 

[JMMD]

Still seems like it's priced too high. I've never been a fan of the PSP, I'm a DS fan.

 

[milford50]

There comes a decent drop. PSPs are meant for "on the move", how can u compare a gtx 460 and a psp go? Its just out of the question...
PSP is the best in terms of graphic quality(while being mobile) and does not have kiddish games like Nintendo`s device.

 

[rizalp]

Even with this price cut, i will never buy PSP Go. It still pretty high. A < $150 and support for UMD will surely attract me. Or, give us the option to transfer games from UMD into PSP Go

 

[Burty117]

I wouldn't buy a PSP anymore, I wanted one when they first came out since they did all sorts of things like web browsing, music and video playback and the games were pretty good aswell. But now I'm just gunna wait for the PSP 2.

Although Portable Grand Turismo would be awesome!

 

[Zoner1501]

The PSP Go should have been marketed as a lite version of the PSP, and as such priced cheaper then the PSP-3000... I honestly don't know what goes through corporate minds....

 

[co1rpal1]

Price is one thing.....but it's really all about having good games.

 

[uttaradhaka]

But I still won't get this PSP. Just looks odd. And the lack of UMD drive was the final nail. Hope the next one is far better, otherwise, the DSi successor will eat it alive.

 

[fritz123]

that price is reasonable if you want to compete with the DS. i have a psp2000 and i dont use it that much. i think the removal of the UMD was kinda good (imo i think it didnt really catch on and it looks kinda ugly).the design of the device isnt very nice. .. i wouldnt buy one just because prices dropped.

sure the psp has better graphics but i think the DS's games are much more fun. (though there are a lot of bad ones too) well, that's just me.