Sony Sweetens PSP Package Deal

By the Betanews Staff | Published September 12, 2006, 11:36 AM

Looking to continue the brisk sales of its portable gaming unit, Sony said Tuesday that it would offer a new bundled package which would include a 1GB memory stick, the game "ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails," and UMD movie "Lords Of Dogtown." Previously, the company had only offered the PSP Core system, which included the AC adapter. The entire package would retail for $249.99 USD.

Up until March, Sony had offered the PSP Value Pack, which bundles the console, 32MB Memory stick Duo, AC adaptor with battery pack, and soft case with cleaning cloth for $249.99. "While the PSP system has out-sold all other next-generation gaming handhelds in the period since its launch, we expect this new offering to drive additional consumer interest and sales, particularly as the holiday shopping season approaches," SCE America marketing senior vice president Peter Dille said.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

I got 2 PSP they are great, i was thinking a buying a third one soon. I think they should let you choose the movie and game than it will be a perfect deal. DS is not gonna sell when that bundle happens lol fingers crose.

P.S. PSP 4 LiFe DS Blows fanboy are always correct i luv Sony lol.

Score: 0

|

How about sweetening the suckwad character entry pad while they're at it?

Score: 0

|

Ha ha! No kidding!

Score: 0

|

They should let the buyer choose the game and movie (while keeping the 1GB memstick part of the deal), but have like choose one of these game titles AND one of these 15 movie titles.

Score: 0

|

"While the PSP system has out-sold all other next-generation gaming handhelds in the period since its launch"

Typical Sony bs. He is clearly only speaking of North America, and even then that's a questionable statement. The PSP is getting molested in worldwide sales compared to the DS, particularly in Japan.

By the way I own both systems and am not a fanboy, but I can't stand hearing any more of Sony's crap these days.

OH and $249.99 seems way too pricey still.

Score: 0

|

There is room for both PSP and DS, both have sold in the region of 20 million units globally, not too shabby, and hardly "getting molested". I assume this is just the regular slam anything Sony post...

Score: 0

|

Well I knew you'd post since you're an obvious Sony fanboy (read: biased). I also said i'm impartial to both companies....of course there's room for both. But check your worldwide figures properly and PSP is clearly number 2 - even Sony admits that. Again, nothing wrong with that either, but when they're little American PR party starts bantering about crap yet again it's time to say enough.

Why are you such a Sony cheerleader by the way?

Score: 0

|

Actually looking into the numbers, Nintendo have only shipped 16 million units (they say so in their quaterly report), PSP has shipped over 20 million.

I don't argue the DS is currently outselling the PSP in most regions, not by much, and the PSP has sold more in total, due to it's earlier launch...

Seems you need to check your facts...

Score: 0

|

Amount shipped does not reflect actual sales.

Get me actual sales numbers, then an argument can be made fr either side.

Latz, SB

Score: 0

|

Atari shipped millions of E.T. cartridges too.

Score: 0

|

Sure thing fanboy...Ready....Let's go:

AS OF AUG 7 2006

Japan (from media create sales data):

DS - 10,108,503
PSP - 3,799,031

If you want a breakdown of individual versions:

Nintendo DS - 6,575,104
PlayStation Portable - 3,799,031
Nintendo DS Lite - 3,533,399

This means that next week the DS Lite alone will possibly have outsold the PSP, and at the current sales rate the DS will have trippled the PSP in Japan within a month.

(source: http://www.dsrevolution....icle.php?articleid=1385 )

-----------------------------------
US: (from NPD funworld sales data):

NDS - 5.19 million
PSP - 4.71 million

Source: http://videogamecharts.com/page3.html

As you can see from the stats there, the DS has always been ahead of the PSP in the US, but not by much. There are also 3 months of DS sales data missing on the chart, so this US figure is certainly too low for the DS.

However, Nintendo has also released a figure for the 'Americas' (including South America) up to the end of June of 5.9 million DS sold. If we add to this the 396,000 DS Lites sold in the US in July, then the DS 'Americas' figure becomes 6.3 million

I can also now add in the PSP's July sales of 169,000, bringing the PSP's US total to 4,879,000.

We don't have an 'Americas' figure for the PSP, but we'll deal with that later.

(Americas figure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS - it sources an official Nintendo sales document, so it legit)

-------------------------------------------
Australia (to the beginning of June only):

DS: 227,369
PSP: 161,623

Keep in mind that this was before the DS Lite launched!

(Source: http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/?v=news&p=3594 )

And reports say that the DS has been selling more then 3:1 over the PSP since the launch of the DS Lite, so it's expected that the DS will possibly have doubled the PSP's sales by now in Australia. But we'll leave it at the confirmed number for now.

So if anyone asks - yes, the DS is well ahead in Australia.

------------------------------------
Europe (including the UK):

The latest figures I could fine were from February this year, on everyone's favourite site:

PSP total: 2,440,000
DS total: 3,700,000

http://palgn.com.au/arti...2ab837c8133bb4cc64a1b87

(also: http://www.slicedgaming.com/news8302.html )

Since then, the DS has pulled even further ahead, most say it's now 2 million ahead in Europe, many say even more since the Lite launched.

----------------------------------
Wikipedia says the DS has sold 6.13 million in 'other' (not Japan on US territories) to the end of June.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS - also souced from the Nintendo sales report, so also quite legitimate.

So all I can do here is extrapolate a PSP 'other' figure. If the DS is 2 million ahead in Europe, let's be generous and give the PSP an 'other' figure of 4 million. It's highly likeley to be lower, since as we've seen the DS is well ahead in Australia, which is part of other (for example).

So lets go with Other (not USA or Japan)

DS - 6.13 million
PSP - about 4 million.
------------------------------------------

Worldwide:

Nintendo announced that they had sold 21.27 million worldwide as of June.

http://www.n-sider.com/n...=story&storyid=2307

Since we can update those figures to include the latest US and Japanese sales figures (see above), this means that the DS has now got confirmed sales of almost 23 million as of the end of July.

There are no real PSP woprldwide figures, because Sony only publishes Shipped figures.

------------------------------------------
So where does that leave us?

We can't get a totally accurate figure, but it looks something like this:

DS Total
Over 22,538,503 confirmed sales

(10,108,503 Japan + 6,300,000 Americas + 6,130,000 other)

Since the 'other' figure is for pre-DS Lite sales, it's highly likely that the DS total is approching 24 million at this point.

PSP Total
Around 12,678,031 confirmed sales

(3,799,031 Japan + 4,879,000 US (to July) + generous estimate of 4,000,000 'other')
-----------------------------------
Conclusion

The DS is far, far ahead everywhere in the world except the US, where it's only just ahead.

(This of course puts Sony's shipped figures to shame. There is no way they have sold any more then 15 million, so they must have literally millions sitting in warehouses and store shelves artificially inflating their 'shipped' numbers).

Special Special Thanks to David from palgn.com.au that I stole all this from. Hey it saved me the time of easily proving Markie Mark wrong.

Score: 0

|

Now research i would truly like to see is as fllows :

User satisfactin, user usage, longevity of product ( including games ), and resale of each.

That would be good for fanboys and girls alike :).

Latz, SB

Score: 0

|

I do not have either systems, but I think the reason for the difference in sales between the PSP and the DS is because of the difference in price.

Score: 0

|

PDC 2009: What have we learned this week?

There was the freebie that no one will forget, the heebie-jeebies courtesy of Scott Guthrie, and a teensy bit clearer picture of how this cloud thingie should work.

Live report: Will Google Chrome OS change Linux?

The mysteries of just what Chrome OS is, and how much of an operating system it truly is, may be resolved today.

PDC 2009: Microsoft cares about Web browser performance

The effort to give users of the world's dominant Web browser the impression of quality, is a personal one for the man who leads that battle.

Nokia re-affirms its commitment to Symbian, sort of

Maemo won't necessarily be replacing Symbian in the Nokia N-Series, but that's definitely a place where it will be found.

E-book readers will be in short supply this holiday season

E-readers are hot this year, and a lot of compelling new products have been released, but are there enough electrophoretic displays to go around?

Sony looks to finally open a single storefront for downloads

Sony has had many different download portals for movies, music, e-books, and games, and now it's looking to make a single shop for all of it.

Tuning out the tablet: Time to give the endless speculation a rest

Wide Angle Zoom: Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying....won't put an iTablet on the market.

Five improvements for IT managers in 2010

If businesses are to improve their efficiency for next year, they need to stop and reassess the basic tenets of their job.

AOL's spinoff from Time Warner to shed 2,500 jobs

As AOL moves toward become an independent company again, it will cut nearly a third of its workforce.

Gartner: SMS-based money transfer will be bigger than mobile browsing, search

Gartner issues its predictions for the 10 things our phones will be doing in 2012.

Don't forget to upgrade to Firefox 3.6 beta 3 today

Mozilla has released the latest beta its Firefox 3.6 browser software, just over one week after beta 2.