PSP Delayed

[Dark Samurai]

Source www.cnnmoney.com

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – The battle between Sony's PSP and Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, which was shaping up to be one of the biggest clashes of the upcoming holiday season, has been pushed to next year.

Sony has informed publishers, developers and retailers that while it still plans to launch its handheld gaming and entertainment device in Japan this holiday season, the PSP will not hit shelves in North America or Europe until calendar year 2005.

"The reason we pushed it out here is we wanted to be sure there's a reasonable amount of software titles to launch with hardware," said Teresa Weaver, a spokesperson for Sony Computer Entertainment.

The system will ship globally before the end of Sony's fiscal year (which ends in March 2005)

While it might also be easy to assume that the delay of the PSP's North American launch signals some sort of problem, that's not likely the case. Sony (and, for that matter, Nintendo) has traditionally launched new products in Japan several months before releasing them in the rest of the world. The original PlayStation hit Japanese stores four months before U.S. consumers were able to buy it. And while the PlayStation 2 went on sale in Japan in March of 2000, it didn't hit the U.S. until October of that year.
"With many of the roots of the gaming industry being in Japan, it's traditional to pay homage and release a hardware product there first and then release in the U.S., even though the U.S. is a bigger market," said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with American Technology Research.

The delay of the PSP, which Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Ken Kutaragi called "the Walkman of the 21st century" when it was announced last May, comes as great news for Nintendo, though not necessarily for budget-minded consumers. With no substantial competition, Nintendo will not be forced to lower prices on its Game Boy Advance SP. It still could, of course – and quite possibly will. Even a token drop of $20 (putting the price at $79) could spur late adopters to pick one up.

More importantly, though, not having to contend with the PSP would allow the company to introduce its new handheld system, the Nintendo DS, without being overshadowed by Sony.

The new system, which was announced on Jan 20, remains shrouded in mystery. It will feature two separate 3-inch LCD screens, giving a player dual perspectives (such as an overhead map and a close-up of the action) as he or she plays. Nintendo has said it does not consider the system the successor to either the Game Boy or GameCube, but rather an entirely new product.

Wow i didnt expect this

but i thought that they might bring it out by Christmas, i guess not

[TheGame]

I wish gaming were based in US (like MS) so crap like tis wouldn't happen... oh well, I acctually kinda expected it. Whenever a Japanese company releases only one date I only see that as the Japan release date.

[Blackmane]

Ah, figures.

But, I wasn't going to buy a PSP anyways, so no matter.

[Jonbo298]

Sony can ship 500,000 PS2's in the US, cause mass chaos, have a person or 2 die around the world just for it. But yet they will delay the PSP because they think they can't produce enough? oh well. Anyone outside Japan always gets the axe, so I should too.

[Canyarion]

Hm interesting for Nintendo...
But they'll probably end up delaying their stuff too. I mean, how many developers will have games ready for the DS if it launches this year??

[TheSlyMoogle]

I'm sure several will, They'll be rushed and completely retarted games. Hooray! N64 style!