Yesterday Sony revealed more details concerning their upcoming portable games console, the Playstation Portable (PSP). The PSP will launch in Japan on December 12 for 19800 Yen. If U.S. pricing is similar, then this means the PSP will cost less than $200! Sony also said that battery life will be between 4 and 6 hours between charges depending on use.
Now first of all, the price is unbelievable. Obviously this is meant to be competitive with Nintendo’s upcoming DS which will launch at $149 in the U.S.. But there’s no way Sony will be making a profit on the hardware at $200 a unit. You can’t get a low end iPod for that much, and arguably there’s a lot more going on in the PSP relative to the iPod. So a wild eyed guess says that Sony will be losing $200 or more per sale! Granted, losing money on the console hardware and making it up on game royalties is standard in the games industry. But this is a lot of money to lose on an unproven console going against a very successful and entrenched competitor like Nintendo.
The other unbelievable thing is the 4 to 6 hours of battery life. Like laptop battery life claims from the manufacturer, this must be taken with a huge grain of salt. If the PSP video display sucks power anything like the one on my kids’ Leapster, cut Sony’s claims in half. At 2 to 3 hours, the PSP could prove to be a bit frustrating for the hard core gamer on the go. On the point of battery life, Sony had better be telling the truth or else they could become quite a laughing stock and the butt of jokes, much as the Apple Newton’s much touted handwriting recognition became when it proved to be less than advertised.
All of that said, Sony, you’re killin’ me! I still think that of the two new handhelds, the PSP is the sexier/cooler/hipper one to have. And at $200, it’s well in range. But Sony, why no movies until 2005? The Playstation 2 launched in Japan with very few games, but the ability to play DVD movies. That movie playing ability really supported early sales of a console that was rather difficult for developers to work with initially. And since Sony owns movie studios, selling more DVDs still helps the bottom line. So why no movies at PSP launch? Writing movies to the new UMD format shouldn’t be any more trouble than writing games to it, so I’m guessing that they haven’t got all of the bugs out of mass producing UMDs yet. So they simply made a choice to go with games over movies. Still, a few block busters from their library should not have been too much trouble.
Well, both Sony and Nintendo are taking big risks with their new handhelds. Sony’s seem to be primarily technical, while Nintendo’s is more of wtf to do with the second screen. This should be an interesting Christmas.