PSPgo Support to Continue in North America, Sony Says
Sony Computer Entertainment will continue producing and supporting PSPgo for North America, a spokesman said by email as the download-only version of Sony’s handheld game system was about to be phased out in Europe and Japan. He didn’t elaborate on the Sony Computer Entertainment strategy for the device, including whether it will phase out the system in North America before or after the coming NGP handheld system launch (CED April 21 p9).
SCEA’s decision could signal that the NGP launch will come later in North America than Europe or Japan, or just mean that there’s somewhat more demand for the PSPgo in the region than overseas. But Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter cautioned not to “read so much into” SCEA’s statement about the PSPgo. “Interpret it to mean it’s alive in the U.S. till they kill it, nothing more,” he said. Sony has said it will ship the NGP in at least one major market by the end of 2011 (CED April 6 p7).
It’s been harder to get PSP sales information since NPD stopped making U.S. hardware data available to reporters a few months ago. Even before that, NPD didn’t break down PSP sales between the PSPgo and PSPs with a Universal Media Disc (UMD) drive. But PSP sales in general have been relatively weak in the U.S. for a long time and PSPgo sales were believed to represent a very small percentage of overall PSP sales in the market. That was the case even after the PSPgo first shipped in 2009, when PSPgo sales data was available from an industry source.
SCE in Europe released a written statement last week saying, “We have stopped production of PSPgo for the SCEE region.” It will, however, “continue to meet demand for the foreseeable future” for the device, it said. SCEE confirmed it was shifting its focus to the NGP: “With the impending launch of NGP later this year, we look forward to providing the robust entertainment solution our consumer is hungry for and have therefore decided to shift our marketing and production efforts towards the new platform.” But it said “we will continue to support the PSP-3000,” the most recent model of PSP that features a UMD drive, “especially through the continued success of our value for money ‘Essentials’ software range and we will continue to support and grow” the PSP game catalog that is “available to download from” the PlayStation Network, it said.
Comment wasn’t provided by SCEA or SCEE about PSPgo plans in Japan. And SCE Japan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But the SCEJ website last week no longer featured a purchase option for the device, though consumers there could still buy a PSP with a UMD drive. PSPgo sales have been weak in Japan, where it’s usually the weakest-selling game system overall each week. The standard PSP with a UMD drive has been a much stronger seller in Japan than the U.S.