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Forums - Sales Discussion - For those claiming PSP Go didn't flop it's time to step up

markers on 08 October 2009
grapeape said:

I dont get the "experiment" thing...people tend to forget that the fallback excuse that they all make when debuting a new product...remember Reggie and the "ds" is not a replacement for the GBA but a side project comments? The Go's launch is by far the worst launch of a portable system by a major player in history. Even the virtual boy managed to sell over 100,000 in its first week, and no one disputed that as a failure (well I guess now some will defend it as an "experiment" too). I dont understand the "it makes money" argument either, do people think that it just popped out of a workbench somewhere for free, at the rate its going it will take months simply to recoup the development costs. Sony's spin is to save face, nothing more. The one thing it did seem to do in my area at least is seriously boost the sales of the slim...I think some falsely believe the slim is on its way out.

The only way I see a device like the go succeeding is to start a generation that way and to tie the device to features you cant get anywhere else.  One thing I see alot of people clamoring for is a psp phone...that I can see taking off, but as it is the go just falls far short and looks like a downgrade to many rather than an upgrade.  A psp2 next time around with a collection of unique games and phone features will do much better.

Just commenting on the ds / go comparison mentioned briefly,

 

When the ds launched how much did it sell? Not too much, so how many out there considered it a flop at the time? A lot more than likely. But in time the ds suddenly took off, but it did take it weeks maybe even months before it started selling like we see it selling now. The point I am trying to get across is you can not judge the go off its first day sales or even its first week. It shows in some games, ala Uncharted or Assassins Creed, that legs mean more than being frontloaded. But give the Go a few months if the sales are the same or lower than you can call it a flop but the sales of the psp as a whole retain its sales that it had gotten this week then I call it a success. Having two sku's is a great thing for the psp, one with UMD the other all digital download. It gets the foot in the door so to speak. Watch nintendo follow in the Go's footsteps this coming E3



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grapeape on 08 October 2009
markers said:

Just commenting on the ds / go comparison mentioned briefly,

When the ds launched how much did it sell? Not too much, so how many out there considered it a flop at the time? A lot more than likely. But in time the ds suddenly took off, but it did take it weeks maybe even months before it started selling like we see it selling now. The point I am trying to get across is you can not judge the go off its first day sales or even its first week. It shows in some games, ala Uncharted or Assassins Creed, that legs mean more than being frontloaded. But give the Go a few months if the sales are the same or lower than you can call it a flop but the sales of the psp as a whole retain its sales that it had gotten this week then I call it a success. Having two sku's is a great thing for the psp, one with UMD the other all digital download. It gets the foot in the door so to speak. Watch nintendo follow in the Go's footsteps this coming E3

Actually even with a staggered launch over 5 weeks (3 weeks in japan and before launching in europe at all) the original DS sold nearly 3 million.  The first week in the US alone saw 230,000 sold.  The DSi launch saw 435,000 sold in the US in the first week, 92,000 in EU in its first week and 170,000 in Japan on launch week.  We can talk legs all you want but based sheerly on numbers its the weakest console launch in nearly a decade...even the GBA Micro sold more than double, to put it in perspective it barely beat the launch of the Neo-Geo pocket color which launched online only.

Why would nintendo feel the need to follow in anyones footsteps?  Nintendo has been taking baby steps and laughing all the way to the bank, the DS launched as an "side project" and took off quickly, yet it retained full backwards compatability with the GBA, the lite was simply a redesign with no real internal changes at all, and finally the DSi launched dropping the gba slot long after the gba was no longer supported while adding an sd slot, browser, cameras, etc leading to their online strategy.  Thats the kind of transition I was talking about...IMHO Sony's strategy is a horrible misstep.



gravess on 08 October 2009

I see the pspgo becoming huge in 2010. I say give it a few months and then you can say it flopped. Was the launch disappointing.......yes but im not giving up on it yet.



Grimes on 08 October 2009
grapeape said:
markers said:

Just commenting on the ds / go comparison mentioned briefly,

When the ds launched how much did it sell? Not too much, so how many out there considered it a flop at the time? A lot more than likely. But in time the ds suddenly took off, but it did take it weeks maybe even months before it started selling like we see it selling now. The point I am trying to get across is you can not judge the go off its first day sales or even its first week. It shows in some games, ala Uncharted or Assassins Creed, that legs mean more than being frontloaded. But give the Go a few months if the sales are the same or lower than you can call it a flop but the sales of the psp as a whole retain its sales that it had gotten this week then I call it a success. Having two sku's is a great thing for the psp, one with UMD the other all digital download. It gets the foot in the door so to speak. Watch nintendo follow in the Go's footsteps this coming E3

Actually even with a staggered launch over 5 weeks (3 weeks in japan and before launching in europe at all) the original DS sold nearly 3 million.  The first week in the US alone saw 230,000 sold.  The DSi launch saw 435,000 sold in the US in the first week, 92,000 in EU in its first week and 170,000 in Japan on launch week.  We can talk legs all you want but based sheerly on numbers its the weakest console launch in nearly a decade...even the GBA Micro sold more than double, to put it in perspective it barely beat the launch of the Neo-Geo pocket color which launched online only.

Why would nintendo feel the need to follow in anyones footsteps?  Nintendo has been taking baby steps and laughing all the way to the bank, the DS launched as an "side project" and took off quickly, yet it retained full backwards compatability with the GBA, the lite was simply a redesign with no real internal changes at all, and finally the DSi launched dropping the gba slot long after the gba was no longer supported while adding an sd slot, browser, cameras, etc leading to their online strategy.  Thats the kind of transition I was talking about...IMHO Sony's strategy is a horrible misstep.

Don't forget the DS Lite, which had massive sales performance. Perhaps the best redesign launch ever. It was sold out for how long?



Anyone can guess. It takes no effort to throw out lots of predictions and have some of them be correct. You are not and wiser or better for having your guesses be right. Even a blind man can hit the bullseye.

Xiul.exe on 08 October 2009
markers said:
How can a new sku flop? It sells along side the psp-3000, consumers decide which they want.

Because more people are interested in domming sony than the system itself.

So imo this is more some fanboy's cherry picking, insteristing enough even old psp users

hate the system because "its not for them".

Anyway i was specting alot less sales considering the price of the product, so imo is not a flop.



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Kasz216 on 08 October 2009
silicon said:
Amazon.com lost a lot of money the first few years. They needed to get people used to buying items from an online dealer. Now it's huge.

SONY is pushing for people to buy games through digital download. This means that they need to start getting people used to the idea, similar to what amazon did.

That's the 'experiment'.

You don't need to push people to buy games through digital download.

You just need to offer a good system to do it...

I mean hell, with your avatar you should know better.



grapeape on 08 October 2009
Xiul.exe said:
markers said:
How can a new sku flop? It sells along side the psp-3000, consumers decide which they want.

Because more people are interested in domming sony than the system itself.

So imo this is more some fanboy's cherry picking, insteristing enough even old psp users

hate the system because "its not for them".

Anyway i was specting alot less sales considering the price of the product, so imo is not a flop.

Not seeing everything through rose colored glasses doesnt meant you hate Sony nor does it mean that there is some vast anti-sony conspiracy.  I have a PS3 and both a Phat and Slim PSP, love them all.  Your right about it not being for me...but really who is it for...fanboys?  I just cant figure out what audience they are going after, they completely alienated any prior PSP owners who werent complete fanboys, reduced it attractiveness to new buyers since there is no big library of cheap games they can buy used or at greatly reduced prices, nor can they borrow games from friends.  It limits it usage for travel early on since committing to buying games is a long arduous process that requires a wifi connection.  Then there is the pricing, $4.99-$9.99 for "mini" games isn't going to cut it especially when many of them are ports of .99-$2.99 iphone games.  Its just hard to find much positive about it.

I guess there is evidently a niche market for it but it seems like an awful waste of money and resouces to go after a fraction of a market, imho they would have been better off adding some storage and bluetooth to the existing PSP and started this download only thing with the PSP2.  My biggest fear is that this will fail so badly that we dont see a PSP2, its not that I hate Sony...I just expect better from them.



almcchesney on 08 October 2009

actually if you guys look at the price point it makes sense, how much is a 16gb mem stick huh???....... upwards of $100 compared to the 10$ umd drive, and i dont know if anyone has played an iso off of a mem card it is about 400x's faster than running off of a umd, specially dissidia and monster hunter, also any game you download you can run from up to 5 psp's simultaneously, so my gf and i can play monster hunter freedom unite together for 40$ compared to paying 80$ for 2 umds, also some of the games on there are 10-15$, and if you download them on a computer you can dl them in about 15 minutes and pause and resume the download.



ironman on 09 October 2009
almcchesney said:
actually if you guys look at the price point it makes sense, how much is a 16gb mem stick huh???....... upwards of $100 compared to the 10$ umd drive, and i dont know if anyone has played an iso off of a mem card it is about 400x's faster than running off of a umd, specially dissidia and monster hunter, also any game you download you can run from up to 5 psp's simultaneously, so my gf and i can play monster hunter freedom unite together for 40$ compared to paying 80$ for 2 umds, also some of the games on there are 10-15$, and if you download them on a computer you can dl them in about 15 minutes and pause and resume the download.

Actually, to be fair, that is the consumer price. I can but one at Microcenter for around $60.00. What we pay at the store for a product, is not the manufacturing cost.



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