Technology

Sony stated to the news that they will be cutting the price of the PlayStation Portable handheld game from $199 down to $169. Sony was expected to make this move after the close of its fiscal year. This move will apparently weaken the Japanese companies. Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, stated in an interview that Sony has sold and shipped more than 25 million PSPs to stores now and the high volumes are allowing it to become more efficient in manufacturing.

Competitively speaking, the PSP Core Pack will now be priced closer to the rival Nintendo DS, which at $129 has sold through more than 35 million units. Tretton said that, after two years on the market, the PSP is achieving Sony’s goal of expanding the handheld gaming market to older console gamers who didn’t play Nintendo handhelds.

The average age of the 7.5 million PSP owners in North America is 24, and only 10 percent of those are DS owners, Tretton said. “We have done a nice job carving out a new consumer,” he said. “We don’t want to limit that because of price and want to reach down to the younger consumer. We’re going after the teen and the tween (between child and teen-age) markets.”

When he was asked how many of the 25 million units have sold through, Tretton stated that in North America, a little more than 8 million units have shipped into stores and about 7.5 million have sold through. He said that sell-through on a worldwide basis is more like 20 million. There are more than 250 titles on the PSP now, with the top hits including Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Most Wanted, SOCOM US Navy Seals, and Madden.

There have been rumors that Sony will be creating a high-end version of the PSP with more of a redesign and more capabilities. While Tretton refused to acknowledge this rumor he did say that if you look at how the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 evolved, it’s clear that “it does change form factor.”

There are more than 450 movies available on Sony’s Universal Media Disc format which the PSP uses. Critics have said that the format is a failure. But Tretton defended it, saying that nine million movies have been sold in North America. He said that the movie companies are releasing more appropriate titles now at better prices ranging from $9.99 to $19.99.