Demand for Sony's PSP outstrips supply

[Sinistar]

RETAILERS are expecting the launch of Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) on September 1 to be an instant sellout because demand has already begun to outstrip supply.

More than 150,000 machines will be available in Britain on launch day, more than double the biggest launch in this country so far of a games console, thought to be the Nintendo DS.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1754741,00.html

just thought someone might find it a good read.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Interesting, they don't exactly seem to be flying off the shelves around here anymore.

 

[mckmas8808]

Interesting, they don't exactly seem to be flying off the shelves around here anymore.

Where is over here? What country?

 

[swaaye]

Why are people buying these things? I've been following the game releases for both DS and PSP and while neither has a remotely interesting library really, DS at least has a few decent titles... but PSP is pretty lacking. And the whole special-format movie thing is complete BS lol.

 

[Sinistar]

because there fun. (entered from my PSP)

 

[BlueTsunami]

because there fun. (entered from my PSP)

Theres one example....


Also being able to VNC into my PC from a wireless network with my PSP and play emulators and read documents and watch videos and listen to music and look at pictures....

*shrugs

*oh yeah...and what Sinistar is doing..(browsing the web with his psp and posting with his psp)

 

[AlphaWolf]

Where is over here? What country?

Canada.

At the local future shop I have seen quite a few 'open box' specials on them. Maybe if the 5 year old 'new' UMD movies weren't $5 more than DVD new releases they'd have more appeal.

 

[mckmas8808]

Canada.

At the local future shop I have seen quite a few 'open box' specials on them. Maybe if the 5 year old 'new' UMD movies weren't $5 more than DVD new releases they'd have more appeal.

Yep you're right but new technology comes at a price. They will soon fall like always.

 

[akira888]

Houston had no shortage at all at launch - the large chain stores had a dozen or so units each gathering dust. Only the speciality shops sold out. Denver and also Edmonton, when I visited there this spring and summer, also had a large surplus of systems at the chains.

 

[swaaye]

I did a lot of that with my Sharp Zaurus 5500 when I had it. Hell I had full PC Doom running on there with timidity software wavetable too. Heh. It would get a bit choppy though having to deal with the wavetable and doom together. That thing had a keyboard though. I would never buy a PDA without a keyboard.

Sounds like there's some fun wacky stuff for PSP. Just don't rely on the games library . Nor those stupid UMD movies for $20/ea!

 

[PatrickL]

In france, according to the radio, supply is way higher than demand. Some shops made a special event a la PS2 launch and had good sales bur far from any record.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I haven't seen any advertising at all. I'd have thought there'd have been a small TV campaign. I'm surprised at Sony's lacklustre approach to pushing PSP. Very unlike them IMO.

 

[StefanS]

I haven't seen any advertising at all. I'd have thought there'd have been a small TV campaign. I'm surprised at Sony's lacklustre approach to pushing PSP. Very unlike them IMO.

Yeah, I found that strange as well. All they seem to do is some product placement (Pimp my Ride)

 

[London Geezer]

Yeah, I found that strange as well. All they seem to do is some product placement (Pimp my Ride)

The Tube is full of PSP billboards and typical weird Sony adverts.
Not sure about TV cause i don't watch TV at all.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't watch much why is why I might'a missed it, but there's no PSP advert 'ambience' such as forum posts or media articles. I remember the same said of the US launch that there's wasn't a hge nationwide campaign. Suggestions from some quarters then were that Sony wanted to limit demand to that which they could supply. Beats me what's going on.

 

[xmu]

Just got back from London and I visited a bunch of stores selling PSP (HMV, Virgin, some obscure shops I can't remember) and in each and everyone of them the PSP itself was not sold out, _but_ on every single visit I saw people in queue with a PSP in hand.

Also I think in every shop atleast one PSP game had sold out. UMDs hadn't

I guess we'll have to wait until next week for any official numbers.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Hmm.
I got one on Saturday from the Sony Shop in St. Albans, I hadn't even intended to, I was just wandering around and saw that they had them in stock. Had a quick play and decided to get one.

I must say that I am pretty impressed, it came with Ridge Racer and Wipeout, both look and play very nice. The demo disc had firmware 2.0 on it, which I updated to (it was already at something like 1.52 and to be honest I would rather keep the system as Sony intends it just in case I need to claim under warranty, rather than risk damaging it just so I can play emulated games).

I have got some memory sticks on order so that I can start uploading my (quite sizable) DVD collection. I have also ordered Lumines as by all accounts it is a must have game.

Anyone know what the IR port is supposed to be used for? I didn't see any mention of it in the manual except that it exists.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I saw my first PSP's this weekend too. Two friends bought them on 1st. The screen really is amazing and the sort of resolution I hoped years ago we'd be seeing on monitors. If you work out the pixels per square inch, on a 15" display you get about 7300 at 1024x768, c. 12000 at 1280x1024 and on PSP you get 16000 pixels per square inch. Over the years as screen resolutions improved the dpi improved too, but these days high resolutions like 1600x1200 are on large screens so you we're not getting high resolution.

Where else is this level of pixels per inch used? Are these high-fidelity screens only being used in PSP or are they making their way to other handhelds as well? Surely there's no monitors at 16000 pixels per sq inch?

Still surprised I haven't heard on any advertising for the system, and there's a dearth of software considering how long it's been on the market. Internet surfing on PSP targettd sites is a very nice feature that could explode if someone put the effort in to developing it.

 

[akira888]

A 17in LCD with a resolution of 1920x1200 should have around ~17700 pixels/in^2.