wraggster
February 3rd, 2005, 19:54
You can keep your PSP price and date speculation (if you live in North America, at least) - Sony has officially announced that the sleek handheld will hit shelves on March 24 with a $249.99 pricetag, and 24 games will be available at launch.[br]Yup, that dollar pricetag means that while lucky North American residents now know when their slice of the PSP pie will be coming, us Europeans are still in the dark. Sony hasn't released any details of the European or UK launch yet and representatives from SCEE were unavailable at the time of writing.[br][br]Nonetheless, the US launch should provide some clues as to what we should expect. For your $249.99 you'll get the equivalent of the Japanese PSP Value Pack, which includes the handheld console itself, a battery pack, an AC adaptor, a 32MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones fitted with a remote control, a soft carrying case, a cleaning cloth and a sample UMD with non-playable game demos. The first 1 million people to snaffle one will also get the Spider-Man 2 movie on UMD as a webby bonus.[br][br]When the handheld launched in Japan last December two packages were available. The Basic Pack, which only includes the handheld, a battery pack and an AC adaptor weighted in at 20,790 Yen ($200, £105 or 150 Euro), is not being made available for the North American launch. [br]The Value Pack, which includes everything the North Americans are getting for 26,040 Yen (approximately $250, £130, or 190 Euro) will be the only choice for the North American PSP purchaser. The $249.99 pricetag is pretty much a like-for-like exchange between currencies, so we're speculating that Europe should nail a £130/190 Euro pricepoint.[br][br]Sony plans to roll out 1 million units in North America before March 31, and still aims to hit 3 million worldwide units sold by that same day. With up to a million units also shifted in Japan since release, perhaps Sony is still planning a pre-March 31 European launch for the handheld in order to make up numbers. [br][br]This would be in stark contrast to some pretty reliable info we got the other day about an April 15 release day, but Sony has always stated its intention to get the system out worldwide before the end of its financial year - again, March 31. [br][br]Is Sony preparing to announce the European launch details? You'll get all the info right here as soon as it happens. In the meantime, here's the US PSP launch lineup in full:[br][br]Ape Escape: On the Loose[br]ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails[br]Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower[br]Dynasty Warriors[br]FIFA 2005[br]Gretzky NHL[br]Lumines[br]Metal Gear Acid[br]MLB[br]MVP Baseball[br]NBA[br]NBA Street Showdown[br]Need for Speed Rivals[br]NFL Street 2 Unleashed[br]Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory[br]Ridge Racer[br]Smartbomb[br]Spider-Man 2[br]Tiger Woods PGA TOUR[br]Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix[br]Twisted Metal: Head On[br]Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade[br]Wipeout Pure[br]World Tour Soccer