Now that we have a price drop (though less than many people wanted), what effect do you think it will have on the PSP's US sales?  Do you think this will have any repercussions on the Nintendo DS?  And should Nintendo respond?

I think the new price will improve PSP sales in April, but that they will return to their normal levels after that.  I don't think this will have much of an effect on the DS since Pokemon comes out this month and that game will sell systems all the way through the holidays.  I also think that we'll see the DS on top in sale for April.  And since the DS will continue to sell well and the PSP didn't drop to $150, Nintendo doesn't need to and won't respond to this change. 

Coming from a Sony fan and a PSP owner I dont think the sales will rise much. To me 30 bucks is a lot but considering the origanal price was 200 I still think its to much. I personally think they should have dropped it to 149.99. When I see the price I dont see much of a drop. I usually see a price drop good if it drops 50 bucks for a console. When the PS2 was 150 and dropped to 120 there wasnt that much of a sale boost.

To the general public it seems the DS is a better purchase in general, wether you believe that or not. The fact is a 30$ price drop won't bring the PSP to DS's price in fact it's still 40$ more expensive. 2 entier games if you buy from the 19.99$ lot which isn't tough for the DS these days a lot of the fun stuff is falling to 20$. So I doubt it'll overthrow the DS magically because it's 30$ cheaper. However a price drop could only lead to good things for sales, as it'd encourage those that may have been on the fence due to cost.

The effects will be massive, the spike in PSP sales will cause the DS market to fall out from under it.  And with DS's not being purchased, I might actually have a chance in hell of finding one!

All they are doing is getting rid of inventory for the new model. They must have a lot in inventory if they are discounting so early.

I'm guessing PSP sales for April will equal the 360 (unless the Elite is coming out in April). I'm thinking 270,000 give or take 20,000.

I don't know.....I think that even though the new model is coming out, this is an indication of a "launch" for the new version.  New product, New price. 

What I am unsure of is, whether nintendo is really planning on shifting resources to the wii, and getting out of the handheld market.  I think that nintendo would be making a big mistake so I doubt that they will really be doing this

 Nintendo isn't doing anything close to getting out of the handheld market. They said thay'd be shifting more resources to Wii development. That's all. They'll still make a hell of a lot of DS games that sell extremely well.

Damn double posting!

The PSP is already on track to do better this year than last, and this price drop will ensure that more brisk pace for a few months. If there is in fact a redesign this fall, that will keep sales strong, and that's not even factoring in the solid titles coming out in the last half of the year. This could be a comeback year for the PSP