PSP Launch Date, Pricing, Battery Life and Software Revealed!

[Snoop]

Lots of new PSP announcements, so read on!

After months of speculation, Sony has announced that the PlayStation Portable will launch in Japan on December 12th 2004 priced 19,800 yen excluding tax (around 145 Euro), with 21 games due out before the end of the year.

Early high profile PSP software will include the promised EA titles (Need for Speed Underground Rivals and Tiger Woods PGA Tour), Dynasty Warriors from KOEI, Metal Gear Acid from Konami, Vampire Chronicle from Capcom, Puyo Pop Fever from SEGA, Hot Shots Golf from Sony and Ridge Racer from Namco.

The December 12th date puts the PSP on stores shelves in Japan ten days after Nintendo DS launches in the region. Nintendo's rival handheld is due on US store shelves even earlier on November 21st, and will cost less at just $149.99 (117 Euro). Nintendo has yet to clarify how many games will launch alongside the console.

Sony has also clarified the battery life situation, stating in its press release this morning that the rechargeable Li-Ion battery will last "between four and six hours for game titles and continuous four to five hours for video viewing," based on the firm's own measurements. Those measurements assume display luminance is set to maximum (180 cd/m2) and minimum (80 cd/m2), while volume is set to half of the maximum level, headphone is in use and wireless LAN not in use.

The console will launch alongside a clutch of accessories including an AC adaptor, battery pack, Memory Stick Duo (32MB), headphone set with remote control, soft-case and hand-strap. We imagine the Memory Stick Duo may be a prerequisite for using the console - it'll cost 3,500 yen (25 Euro) on its own.

Sony will also release a "PSP Value Pack" for 24,800 yen (182 Euro) featuring the console and all of the above accessories in one box. There are no console-plus-game bundles mentioned in this morning's announcement.

Looking further into the future, Sony says that more than one hundred games are in development for the system, and that, "Entertainment software of an entirely new category mixing game, music and video on a single UMD is expected to be released in spring 2005, further enriching the world of PSP."

Sony has yet to comment on when the PSP will launch in the States and Europe, but the expectation now is that the company can stick to its "early 2005" estimate, having proven itself to analysts who had already written off the console's hopes of making it out this year.

Thanks to Gamesindustry

[Snoop]

The full list of games due out in Japan this December follows:

Lumines (Bandai (Tetsuya Mizuguchi), puzzle)
The Legend of Heroes: Gagharvtrilogy White Witch (Bandai, RPG)
Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (Capcom, fighting)
Kollon (CyberFront, puzzle)
Need for Speed Underground Rivals (EA, racing)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour (EA, sports)
Armored Core: Formula Front (FromSoftware, Mech simulation)
Rengoku: The Tower of Purgatory (Hudson, A-RPG)
Dynasty Warriors (KOEI, action-strategy)
Mahjong (KOEI, board game)
Metal Gear Acid (Konami, turn-based strategy)
Mah-jong Fight Club (Konami, board game)
AI Go (Marvelous, board game)
AI Mah-jong (Marvelous, board game)
AI Shogi (Marvelous, board game)
Kotoba No Puzzle Mojipittan Daijiten (Namco, puzzle)
Ridge Racer (Namco, racing)
Puyo Pop Fever (SEGA, puzzle)
Dokodemo Issyo (Sony, "misc.")
Hot Shots Golf (Sony, sports)
Puzzle Bobble Pocket (Taito, puzzle)

[The Central Scrutinizer]

That short battery life is going to hurt them.

[FoH]

I'm quite content with the battery life. I don't make very long trips Nevertheless, I wonder if that battery pack is easily changed, so you don't have to take the thing appart. If it easy enough the battery life isn't much of a problem - too me anyway. Sure, an extra cost and all that, but what the heck.

Also, memory sticks are expensive... What's the chance of add-ons in memory-area? HDD of some sort is out of the question i guess, and who'd want it anyway

And what's your take on the hw? Would emus and such made for example PS1/PS2 be easily ported you think?

Edit: What's the word on region protection btw? Maybe it's worth importing...

[IceManZ]

Great News, too Bad it will be out only early 2005 for US / Europe, I can't get one for christmas

[boule]

that's just my opinion so please don't try to kill me after reading this :
I think sony's marketing department has once again succeded in fooling people.
everybody was believing that the psp is much more powerful than the DS after seeing videos that were not coming from the games in action but from UMD( and actually believing that its graphical power was identical to ps2) and now that the price is so low people gonna think that it's such a great deal.
ok the one screen is bigger but the graphics are really not superiors (from the sony videos that I saw it was not better than n64 quality ) and the fact that you can't play japanese games or US games in europe is a really big problem (for me).
I'm also waiting to see battery tests made by other people than sony...
If someone could also explain to me what the point of watching movies on a screen that small are they actually gonna release movies on umd?
the good thing I see from son'y arrival on the market is that it's gonna make nintendo move its butt and they are actually
sorry for the english mistakes.

[PenPen]

It seems to me that Sony tried to rush this product. I'm guessing that the hardware might break down on a couple of people. So maybe people should wait till the 2nd model get's release

[FoH]

What else are you going to watch movies on, if not the PSP? You can hardly bring you dvdplayer along on a plane or train or bus or in the car or whatever Sure, no-one is going to sit down in the sofa in front of their home cinema and switch on the PSP, but that's hardly the inteded use, right? I mean, it's a portable thingy first and foremost. Portable things are hardly ment to replace your stationary equipment.

As for the graphics, it's not a PS2, I'll give you that. It's slightly ahead of NDS though. That's what I thought after seeing in-game videos.

[boule]

What else are you going to watch movies on, if not the PSP? You can hardly bring you dvdplayer along on a plane or train or bus or in the car or whatever Sure, no-one is going to sit down in the sofa in front of their home cinema and switch on the PSP, but that's hardly the inteded use, right? I mean, it's a portable thingy first and foremost. Portable things are hardly ment to replace your stationary equipment.

As for the graphics, it's not a PS2, I'll give you that. It's slightly ahead of NDS though. That's what I thought after seeing in-game videos.

I agree with you on the fact that it could be nice to watch movies in the train,subway,etc...
but when you buy a movie on umd ,what will be the resolution:480x272 (psp resolution) or dvd (720x780)?480x272 would mean that watching it on a tv would cause a quality loss...because when I buy a movie I want to be able to watch it on any support,and I stopped buying movies on vhs for a reason
and you wouldn't be able to watch this movie elsewhere unless you buy a sony dvd player with a umd plug (not sure if this is the right word) or a special cable sold separately...
I really don't like that proprietary support, sony is doing the same thing that they did with minidiscs.

[QuadForce]

the hackability will be a big selling point for me