PSP price won't get higher in 06

PSP price won't get higher in 06:
News from Sony: after the repeated delays concerning the PS3 and the shortages at its launch, the Japanese giant announces that PS3 smaller sister, the PSP, is not going to see a price cut this year.



Even if there was no doubt that Europe will NEVER see something important (anything at all…) before the US or Japan from Sony, they still declared that no price cut will be operated on the North American territory.

"We don't necessarily see the need to cut the price," John Koller, a product manager at Sony Computer Entertainment, told Reuters. "We need to offer broader value and introduce new consumers to what the PSP can do."

Since its launch from the fall of 2005, around 5.5 million pieces of Sony’s handheld gadget have been sold in only the US. But despite the impressive numbers PSP is outshined by Nintendo’s smaller, cheaper and “poorer” Dual Screen portable console.

Nintendo managed to have over 5 million DS owners only across Europe, and more than 21 million handheld consoles sold worldwide, which says a lot about what Sony has to learn from its home ground rival.

Not to mention the fact that recent games launched for DS have captured and fascinated Europeans in the most surprising way, making game makers and the public rethink their opinions about video games. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? has seen over 500,000 of its copies bought in just nine weeks from the game’s launch in June. Nintendogs puppies sold more than 600,000 copies in Germany and over 3 million across Europe while Animal Crossing: Wild World has sold over 600,000 copies across Europe.

"Nintendo DS in Japan outsells all of our competitors by a factor of five to one. We are so far in advance of our handheld competitors that they're not even on the map," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime boasted in an interview with USA Today. "That's all based on a market expansion strategy. And that's what we're looking to do with home consoles."

PSP’s disappointing sells are mostly due to the lack of games for it, although the handheld gadget also plays music, videos, displays photos and even browses the Web wirelessly. But Koller says there will be about 110 new titles available by the end of 2006, bringing the roster to about 230.

He added that Sony would soon detail how the PSP would integrate with Sony's highly anticipated next-generation game console, the PlayStation 3, which is due in November.

Meanwhile, the company came out with several peripheral devices for PlayStation 3, including the SIXAXIS wireless controller, which has a motion detection system and Bluetooth technology. The controller is capable of operating for 30 hours on a 1-hour charge via a USB cable.

Then, there is Memory Card Adapter, which allows users to transfer their PS2/PS saved data to the hard drive.
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