Pachter regrets calling PSPgo a "rip-off" Comments by Robert Purchese

"loosing"

GOD NO!!!

NO NO NO!!!

Doesn't that mean that Sony has made a loss of $2.2 BILLION on PS3s?? Surely not?!

Have they really lost $100 per PS3? That's unbelievable.

$ 2,200,000,000?

@quantumsheep:

Yeah, I twitched a little at that.

I'm quite keen to get a PSPgo. I reckon I'll be more keen when we find out what they're doing with UMD transfer. My ideal would be some way to buy games on UMD and transfer them to a digital format, as that mirrors my preferred way of filling my mp3 player by buying CDs. Seems unlikely though, but I'm slowly coming round to digital sources.

No, right first time: £250 is a rip off!

Do you think Sony's lawyers had got in touch by any chance? :-)

Pacther is a tit, anything he says should be taken with a pinch of salt, maybe less so.

PSP sells 100k a month and Sony decides to make hideous looking gimped overpriced PSP to help sales-this is not a rip off its a case for mental institution

PSPGo=IQ test

Do you think Sony's lawyers had got in touch by any chance? :-)

Smells like it, Ace, doesn't it?

I'm not sure which bit of the price suggests it isn't a ripoff, nor that Sony are 'entitled' to effectively overcharge on the PSPGo because they've so royally ballsed up the release and marketing of the PS3.

But that's just me.

If you don't like the pricing of a GO just buy a normal psp. They are being sold alongside one another.

Lawyers been on the phone have they?

LOOSING?

WHAT THE FUCK, BRAMWELL? EDIT! EDIT! EDIT!

If you don't like the pricing of a GO just buy a normal psp. They are being sold alongside one another.

That would require too much logic.

The UMD-less handheld costs GBP 250, EUR 250 and USD 250.

This is why Sony needs to be destroyed.

Eurogamer readers and logic don't go together.

Have they really lost $100 per PS3? That's unbelievable.

$ 2,200,000,000?

That is an awful lot, do film compaines have to pay Sony to use a blu-ray disc?

If you think the console is a ripoff, wait until you see the price of the games on PSN I guess...

"No, right first time: £250 is a rip off! "

Agreed. Sony did many great things in this year's E3 reg. PSP - new hardware and a awesome software lineup, but the PSP Go price is a mistake!

£250.00 for a handheld! Not a chance i would pay that! Way to expensive, i have 360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP i'm not forking out £250. Any one else think it is overpriced?

£250 for a device that has a smaller screen, potentially won't play all of your games if they don't offer a replacement service for some of them, and doesn't improve on the graphical quality, and gives nothing that a different version of the console that costs half the price can't do if you add a memory stick in? I would say that this is a monumental ripoff, I would be suprised if they sold more than 10 of them, I think that after a while game/gamestation et al won't have them on the shelves as they will take up valuable space and won't sell. If it was £130, and they released details of the game trade in scheme, then things might be different.

Another useless overpriced piece of sony hardware.

They are experts these days at these kinda things.

Where did the £250 come from? Did I miss a press release again? I thought only USD and EURO prices had been announced?

Nope, it's a rip-off. Not that the iPod Touch isn't, mind you, but that's beside the point. I guess Sony had something to say to Pachter.

It's true that a company can put the price they want to a product, but then they can't complain if it doesn't sell.

As for me, I'll be perfectly fine with my PSP2000.

$250 at the current exchange rate of 60p per $ = £150

RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF RIP OFF.

I think Pachter is a very sympathetic and charming man who does well on the Bonus Round show.

At today's exchange rate $250 =£151

Looks like they are hoping to make up that PS3 loss on every PSPgo they sell!!!!!!!!!

Rip off, May try and import one again (Imported my first whiite one from Lik-Sang, good place too) Will the console be region locked to certain PS Stores? If not i'll defo import.
£250 with no game? Sony can suck my balls

it is $250 €250 so judging by the way companies usually do buisness not a great leap to make it £250

for ref $250=£151.73 €250=£213, already a massive disparity (even taking into account sales tax and vat)

>Looks like they are hoping to make up that PS3 loss on every PSPgo they sell!!!!!!!!!

That will teach those pesky MS-loving UK people not buying those PS3s! Payback time!

"The company has the right to price its products at a point that they think is competitive, and has no obligation to sell products at lower than a competitive price," he added.

Isn't that a given? But isn't it also a given that we as consumers have the right to call bullshit when we see it?

How sad. The one time when Pachter tells it like it is and then he goes and back peddles like a little school girl caught in the mens bathrooms!

Pachter you are officially banned from ever eating a bag of McCoy crisps because as we all know. Them's MAN crisps and your man credentials have been officially revoked!

For a so-called analyst his comments seemed a little confused.

I understood he was criticising Sony for launching the PSP Go at a high initial price because they knew they would snare a sizeable number of PSP fans / gadget fanboys regardless of price.

But surely this is a sensible way to behave if you're in business, especially if you will probably have stock shortages launching at a lower price?

It's not like Sony is a gamer charity, much as I'd like them to be.

If I had 100 of commodity X, and could choose to sell it for either £10 or £15 (knowing that I'd sell out in either case) I know what I'd choose.

Pachter - get yourself an iPhone and download EA's Lemonde Stand. That'll help you out...

"If you think the console is a ripoff, wait until you see the price of the games on PSN I guess... "

I got a few games for a fiver that they were charging 15-20 quid for online. It'd be crap to have no choice but to pay full price.

Will keep my old PSP and will probably keep buying UMDs because it's cheaper in the end. The number of times that I actually play my PSP on the road (and thus are severely hindered by the terrible battery life) are few.

Spell check, please!

Where's the £250 come from? Just a quick look on google shows pre orders at £179.99 (Game) to £229.99. (Amazon).

I still think its overpriced, but who pulled £250 out of their arse? AFAIK that's never been on the cards.

Next, Pachter on 'I'm a Celebrity...'?

Are any of the guy's comments/views really worth reporting?

Sony have every right to rip the consumer off to address the losses they made with the idiotic PS3 strategy.

It was the true choice of words, but not perhaps the best for his carreer.

They lost loads and there gonna loose more, im glad when a company as arrogant as Sony charges through the nose for something that is no more than a glorified PSP , it's a rip-off unless your stupidly rich and have no idea when it comes to the value of money.

It *is* a rip-off, though, especially if the Euro prices are to be believed.

A nice idea (and still a great machine) utterly shat on by an idiotic pricing strategy. Nicely done, Sony! >:(

So we don't know where the £250 comes from? The only site I can find quoting a UK price is this one, and pre-orders mostly appear to be below £250. Is that really so bad compared to some 16gb mp3 players?

Hey Greybeard,

GAME are selling at £229. I saw your post and thought "WTF!?! GAME offering a good deal???" and was put right. The world is in balance again:

http://www.game.co.uk/PSP/Hardware/Conso...

Well yeah it's bad, imagine if the PSP actually made a killing and destroyed the DS for sales, then this was announced, im sure it wouldnt not have been £250, saying that it is Sony and there PS2 is still £100 lol...

i wonder how long it will take them to realise ppl dont want to pay silly money these days for consoles, there is a recession on gawd dammit!

I don't get it. It has less hardware, surely it would be cheaper or at the very least just as expensive? Am I missing something here? Did they do something else?

16Gig flash. That's something 'more'

Bluetooth is also more.

It's 250 euros, Sony have said so. Straight dollar > euro transliteration.

I *had* hoped this would be at least a bit cheaper than the UMD-based PSPs, the release schedules for the PSP are looking rather healthy right now (Assassin's Creed in particular). The PSP is a very nice bit of hardware and I use mine often but it's been pretty bloody barren for software for ages now.

I saw this as an opportunity to give it a shot in the arm with DD. At that price, the general public aren't going to be interested.

when i first heard the price, I firmly believed it to be at least €50 too high. At this moment I still think it is, a rip-off, BUT as the man now corrects: Sony is free to do what it wants and price its gear anyway it sees fit. I do not believe it will sell at that price though. Not a dent.

It does seem clear that Sony is not eying competition with DS. They seem to believe that they can co-exist (and they can). With DS being the mainstream, kiddy, girly buy. PSP's the hardcore one.

There's a couple of reasons I think £230 is WAY too high a price point for this console:

1) You're actually getting less for your money. Smaller screen and no UMD drive are a step down on the functionality side. The built in memory helps ease the pain a little but still...

2) It's going to be bloody expensive to transition from the PSP - different perhipherals, new cases, new memory stick format. All of that adds up. It's also, btw, one of the reasons the PSP-3000 becomes a LOT less attractive. Any money you put into it now in the form of UMD games, accessories etc is rendered moot if you ever want / need to upgrade.

3) This is a test case to see whether gamers will go for a download-only system. Assuming that Sony have got the piracy thing sorted out (which, if they haven't, is going to see the Go sell by the thousands as the games are designed to run off the internal memory unlike UMD's so you're guaranteed to get the same gaming experience as a legal copy.. just a thought) then the only way to buy games is through Sony's own on-line portal at a fixed price. No more competition and no second hand market is likely to see average prices per game rise. Given this, and the uncertanty about the impact on customers of having a game library that they don't own and can't resell, you'd think Sony would be trying to ship as many as possible to establish the eco-system and convince gamers to give it a go.

Surely we should all just work more hours...