Sony to Launch PSP on March 24th

Posted on February 3, 2005

Sony announced that its new portable gaming consule, Playstation Portable (PSP) will be available on Marth 24th. However, as IGN notes, the portable consule will be more expensive then expected. PSP will retail for $249.99.

PSP comes with a 480 x 272 pixel high-resolution screen and uses the new Universal Media Disc (UMD), as its storage medium. UMD is only 60mm in diameter, but can store up to 1.8GB of digital data -- more than three times the data held on a CD-ROM. Sony says the new device is for watching movies and playing music as well as gaming and the new PSP launch package includes a copy of the Spider-Man 2 film on UMD.

Kaz Hirai, president and chief executive officer, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., says in a statement, "PSP will evolve and elevate portable entertainment, giving users the freedom to play full 3D games, watch movies, listen to music and connect wirelessly on their terms, their time and their place."

Schelley Olhava, an analyst for research company IDC, told CNET that Sony's move to turn the new portable into a multimedia device could be risky. Olhava says, "Sony has to walk a very careful marketing path now. People are going to buy this to play games. When you start packaging other things with it, that kind of blurs the message."

However, Sony says PSP is already a hit in Japan with with more than 800,000 units shipped, including a 200,000-unit allocation that sold out on day one.