| RolStoppable said: Alright, I'll tell you in late April/early May then. I think we've gone over this before, how desperate Nintendo was for third party support and all that. Getting a huge headstart seemed to be the easiest way for them, so they went with it. I can't find anything anymore about an intended late 2010 launch, so I was probably mixing up calendar and fiscal year. The 3DS eventually did launch worldwide in the planned fiscal year as we know. It's also possible that I was just thinking of an explanation by Nintendo why they didn't launch the 3DS during the holiday season 2010 and that's where this "because of too low supply" is coming from. 20 million PSPs is about right. I also looked into the pricing issue. Japan was the only country to receive a core model at launch, going for 20,000 yen (which basically is $200). America got it in March 2006, so approximately one year after the PSP launch. Europe also got it in March 2006, about half a year after launch. VGC has the PSP at 9.6m for 2005 and 9.5m for 2006 (2004, Japan only would be 0.5m). So basically Sony had to react with cheaper models in early 2006 to keep PSP hardware sales stable for the year, despite an obviously better overall games library than in 2005. The original $250 price point simply wasn't sustainable and the PSV is actually more expensive than that. |
I'm sure you'll remember. I'll expect the wallpost.
On them "planning" to launch in that FY. As I said before... I think they rushed it to counter the losses they expected along with at the time, stock prices dropping like a rock. It's the only real solution for why there was so little released between then and the Holiday Season for the machine. I don't think Nintendo were stupid enough to release a $250 handheld with very little worthwhile releasing for 9 Months on purpose, the losses/drops forced them to.
I still stick with my point that it wasn't the price that caused 3DS to drop, it was the lack of anything worthwhile releasing within launch and the Holidays. I'd also argue that the 3DS would have done just fine if the pricecut kept the machine above $199.99, just for the sake of arguing.
