UK Retailer Says PSP Go Will Be Dead on Arrival

[Jumplion]

That's because not everybody is going to spend $400 to read books they can get for $7

I understand what you were going for but it's not exactly the same kind of situation.

I know it's not the exact same situation, but I feel that it's close enough at least. Another factor is that people like hard copies of their items, so I hardly think one platform aimed at giving convenience to the player so they don't have to lug around 10 of those humongo UMD Disk things is going to affect overall sales of PS2, PS3, PSP-3000, 360, Wii, DS, and probably Gamecube and Xbox games as well.

I'm probably exaggerating though, but I just find this pretentious whining to be perfectly honest.

 

[Huey1000]

Well Shopto.net is a good website to get games cheap in England, although I can probably get them cheaper at the Gamestation in the Bootle Strand (30 quid for the new Ninja Gaiden, c'mon!). I don't know much about the PSP Go, but from what I heard only a divy la would spend any ackers for it. I normally don't listen to popular opinion much, but I rather go the chippy and get me a bevy than waste it on a PSP Go.

 

[VanityGirl]

I doubt the PSP Go will sale that well to begin with, just because of the $249 price tag stapled onto it.

 

[Bad Bullet Ballistic]

Now I may be completely wrong here but I once heard that the only pure gaming platform that made a profit in and of itself was the gameboy series of handhelds. Even if that were not true I think it's safe to say that most of the money is in game sales. I think most retailers would be a tad annoyed to be expected to sell something that is not going to generate them any income.

Of course there could be other incentives; I seem to remember Dixons wanting to stop selling Gamecubes and Nintendo threatening to refuse to supply Dixons with GBA's and GBA games in future. Sony could issue the same kind of threats to any store refusing to sell the PSP Go.

 

[AceDiamond]

That's because not everybody is going to spend $400 to read books they can get for $7

I understand what you were going for but it's not exactly the same kind of situation.

I know it's not the exact same situation, but I feel that it's close enough at least. Another factor is that people like hard copies of their items, so I hardly think one platform aimed at giving convenience to the player so they don't have to lug around 10 of those humongo UMD Disk things is going to affect overall sales of PS2, PS3, PSP-3000, 360, Wii, DS, and probably Gamecube and Xbox games as well.

I'm probably exaggerating though, but I just find this pretentious whining to be perfectly honest.

I agree with you to a point, but the problem is that the game retailers do make money from game sales more than they do consoles. Add that to limited shelf space and the fact that, in Europe, the PSPGo costs a considerably large amount, I can see their side of things. It's partially, I feel, why Gamestop got into digital distribution as well because they needed to compete with services like Steam and GoG

 

[Pendragon9]

Such hate for the PSP Go. Wow. I'm saddened. I don't expect it to take off, but everyone is already getting their pitchforks out. Can you people wait a little while before it actually releases? Many of the predictions are becoming more like douchebag statements.

 

[asinann]

While I don't think the GO will have an impact large enough to completely change the format of gaming worldwide, I do think it has the possibility to be a success. That is, if people don't already own a PSP, and don't mind Downloading games rather than buying them.

Sony also has a history of stopping support on things they don't want to sell.
I see the PSP disappearing from the market in a year, and the UMD in two years at most. Sony will stop making games for the PSP first, then stop relicensing companies to make them essentially killing the system (unless of course the GO gets no support from consumers in Japan.) Keep in mind that Sony doesn't care about any part of the world except Japan since that's where the majority of it's sales comes from (as far as the games department goes anyway) so when Europe and America tell them to piss off, they take things that we want off the shelves and put only the crap we don't want out there.

Personally I think it's going to end up a joke like the NGage and Virtual Boy were.

 

[scotth266]

"It's just silly for a retailer to say that they won't sell a big ticket gaming device because they can't sell the games," Pachter said. "Consumer electronics stores sell refrigerators and not food, everyone sells iPods and not the music for them; this position is just ridiculous."

That's wrong. Retailers do sell the music for Ipods: it's called CDs. Oh, and his other example is wrong too, because electronics stores have never sold food, so they have never lost out on sales of said food.

In this case, Sony is taking a product off of the retailer's shelves and selling it themselves: so yeah, the retailers are losing out on these game sales, and they do have a right to be worried.

 

[iblis666]

Well Shopto.net is a good website to get games cheap in England, although I can probably get them cheaper at the Gamestation in the Bootle Strand (30 quid for the new Ninja Gaiden, c'mon!). I don't know much about the PSP Go, but from what I heard only a divvy la would spend any ackers for it. I normally don't listen to popular opinion much, but I rather go the chippy and get me bevy than waste it on a PSP Go.

interesting slang you used there in a way refreshing from the slang im used to in the US

the psp go may not be dead on arrival but its going to piss off some retailers and customers though all in all the psp 3000 is probably a better system i just hope it will be able to use digital distribution

btw anyone else notice that sony replaced one easily broken part with another when they made the psp go with that stupid slide screen and got rid of the umd?

 

[Sephiwind]

While I don't think the GO will have an impact large enough to completely change the format of gaming worldwide, I do think it has the possibility to be a success. That is, if people don't already own a PSP, and don't mind Downloading games rather than buying them.

Sony also has a history of stopping support on things they don't want to sell.
I see the PSP disappearing from the market in a year, and the UMD in two years at most. Sony will stop making games for the PSP first, then stop relicensing companies to make them essentially killing the system (unless of course the GO gets no support from consumers in Japan.) Keep in mind that Sony doesn't care about any part of the world except Japan since that's where the majority of it's sales comes from (as far as the games department goes anyway) so when Europe and America tell them to piss off, they take things that we want off the shelves and put only the crap we don't want out there.

Personally I think it's going to end up a joke like the NGage and Virtual Boy were.

Don't forget about the Nomad talk about another flop.

As for them phasing out the PSP I can see them phaseing it out in Japan since it's really easy for someone in a large city over there to find on the go internet, but as much as Sony only cares about Japan, whne it comes down to it they are a business, and the purpose of a business is to make money. This is what I think will happen.

After the first few sales weeks the PSP Go sales will drop in the US, and the UK. Sony will realise that even though there is no real market for it in the other regions, there is still a market for the PSP. So while the Japanese will have their Go and DLC games only they will probably consider UMD support because they will still make a larger profit with not haveing to worry about hard copies in Japan so it will be slightly less money then if everything went digital download.

I am sure that from a business perspective they would rather make bigger profits by keeping the US and UK as customers rather then loseing millions of sales. I mean seriously it's not like they are an American company that knows that if they do something financially stupid that the government will come in and keep them from failing.

 

[Doth]

Why, yes, cutting out the middleman and expecting his help to do so is a great idea.

 

[Royas]

I can understand why the retailers are a bit hesitant at best to promote the new PSP. The margin on hardware is so slim, they really only make money on the games. And the margin on the new games is much less than the margin on the used games. No way they'd want to promote a device that cuts into their software sales like the PSP Go might. Fortunately for them, I don't see the PSP Go being any more successful than the original PSP, so it's probably a moot point.

 

[Jandau]

"It's just silly for a retailer to say that they won't sell a big ticket gaming device because they can't sell the games," Pachter said. "Consumer electronics stores sell refrigerators and not food, everyone sells iPods and not the music for them; this position is just ridiculous."

Well, to be honest, it's not that silly. To use the Mr. Patcher's analogy, imagine being able to sell a refridgerator AND the food for it. Now imagine all refridgerator models requiring customers to buy food from you. And now imagine a new model that doesn't require that anymore...

It's not a matter of PSP Go cutting out the middle man, it's a matter of everybody else NOT cutting him out. PSP Go is the Black Sheep so to speak and the retailers don't want the trend to spread any further. When a kid walks in and wants a portable gaming system they'd rather sell him a DS than a PSP Go since with the DS the kid will come back again and again to get games.

 

[elexis]

Well those retailers don't have anything to fear over here in Australia. Even though it costs an arm and a leg to buy hard copies of games here, it still beats 36 hours straight of downloading at pitiful speeds.

 

[Joshimodo]

An unnecessary and ugly sequel to an unpopular handheld won't sell well?


Well, there's a shocker.

 

[Simalacrum]

Though I agreed with retailers about there problems with selling games initially, I've started to realise its a little bit of nonsense really. For one thing, I do believe its possible to sell the codes for games in stores, which is still possible. Furthermore, not everyone who plays games have credit/debit cards, and they might have to rely on game stores to get money tokens and whatnot to buy the games in the first place (you know, those PSN cards that have a certain amount of money on it? Can't remember what they're called...)

 

[DeadMG]

The retailer is a nobody; I'm not bothered. If it was Game or HMV then maybe.

 

[bue519]

An unnecessary and ugly sequel to an unpopular handheld won't sell well?


Well, there's a shocker.

Ehhh better than getting a DS.

 

[Piotr621]

I share the same opinion. Why would you shell out an extra 150 dollars for a "slick" design, 16 GB and a complete lack of UMD drive? Would rather get a PSP 3000.

 

[Generic_Dave]

Retailers boycotting a device that cuts them out of the game sales market...never saw that coming.