PSP Go isn't cannablizing PSP sales, House says

by Ben Gilbert on Nov 25th 2009 6:00PM

For those of you out there on your third or fourth sleepless night, unable to catch some Zs for worry that Sony is losing money on its physical-media PSP models to the PSP Go, it's time to rest easy. Sony Europe head Andrew House recently told GamesIndustry.biz that digitally distributed titles are "additive to the business." Better yet, newer PSPs aren't eating older ones. "I don't think there's been a huge amount of cannibalization." Okay, okay, he's talking about PSP Go sales proverbially "eating up" PSP-3000 sales.

He even goes as far as to state that "those sales [PSP Go sales] have come in and lifted overall PSP sales" – something we've heard stated before by execs at Sony Europe. We're not exactly sure what the strategy is behind using your new $250 PSP to sell your old (and arguably more feature-rich) PSP-3000, but we're still hopeful that Sony sees a long-term plan where we see a really expensive, download-only handheld.

Source

Tags: andrew-house, digital-distribution, handheld, psp-go, scee, sony, sony-computer-entertainment-europe, sony-europe

Reader Comments (61)

I had feared one thing about digital distribution is that only Sony would sell the games, thus a pricing monopoly, no competition, etc. The good thing is you can at least purchase the vouchers from brick and mortar retailers who may offer them at a discount.

Too bad PSN is the only place to download the games, what if there are technical issues?

Sony, you wanted digital distribution, you better have the network to handle it, I hope you do. I have no idea, since I never use it.

Of course they have the network for it! barely anyone uses the servers in charge of downloading games for the psp go

@brian

With or without Sound?

no sound, but i can live with that for a racing game.

it's still fun as hell doing the special cup

I am sorry but I am not paying $39.99 for a downloaded game when I can get the UMD for the same price or cheaper in most instances.

I really wanted one.. I already own the original psp and ps3 60gb. I wanted to upgrade to s Go and Slim.. but they are too close in price. Why get a Go when I can get a Slim for almost the same price. If it was 199 I would jump on it.

I was expecting this to be a short horror movie about a PSP Go eating a fellow PSP 3000.

I was sadly disappointed.

I want a PSP Go. To bad that ain't gonna happen till it's the same or close to the price of a PSP-3000.

Wait... how is the 3000 more feature rich than the Go? It plays UMDs and that is pretty much the only thing that it does that the Go can't. Well, that and leave you with spending money.