PlayStation Portable price drops to $170
Sony cuts $30 from handheld in effort to attract more teens
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 4/3/2007
APRIL 3 | Sony Computer Entertainment America has cut the list price of its PlayStation Portable console by $30 to a new starting price of $169.99.
After two years of availability, the PSP has shipped 25 million units worldwide, including more than 1 million in North America in December, according to Sony. Total PSP software shipments reached more than 90 million units last year.
The cut price should provide some helpful oomph to the handheld unit, which was designed as a gaming and movie playing device.
Citing limited consumer interest, many studios have stopped releasing new film titles for the PSP. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment are among the few studios who have streeted new PSP movie titles this year, including Casino Royale on March 13 and The Marine on Feb. 13, respectively.
PSP game titles are proving relatively more popular, including such hot sellers as SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 2, Killzone: Liberation and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
New game releases in 2007 include God of War, Ratchet & Clank and another installment of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs. Also, older titles Daxter and Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror will now be available at an economical $19.99 price as part of PSP’s Greatest Hits line of titles.
“We have always been passionate about making great entertainment accessible to everyone, and the new price for PSP, as well as the continued growth of the Greatest Hits library, reflects our ongoing commitment to supporting and expanding the PSP community,” said Jack Tretton, Sony Computer president. “We are pleased that we are able to engineer savings for the consumer at this stage of PSP’s lifecycle, allowing more individuals to experience PSP for the first time. In particular, we have seen a steady rise in the number of teens adopting PSP as their primary handheld entertainment system, and we expect the new price will accelerate that trend.”
In the past year, PSP has upgraded its system with such new offerings as Remote Play, which allows PSP users to access photos, videos and music from a nearby PlayStation 3, and TivoToGo, enabling users to watch recorded TV programming on a PSP.
