Analyst: New PSP Coming Next Spring

[wraggster]

Via Gamedaily

Sony today cut its PSP shipment target to 9 million units, but that hasn't stopped the company from redesigning its portable, according to American Technology Research analyst P.J. McNealy. In fact, McNealy expects two flavors of PSP next year. [Update: Sony responds]


P.J. McNealy of American Technology Research has today sent us a number of interesting points about Sony's three gaming platforms. Perhaps most notable is that the analyst believes Sony is actively working on introducing a new PSP by next spring.


"Sony will likely introduce a refresh of the PSP hardware line, including a hard-disk drive PSP and a second PSP with no hard drive but with a significant amount of flash memory on board," he said. "We expect these products in Spring 2007, with the pricing for the hard-drive based model at $199 or above, and the new flash-based one below $199."


As for the company's ubiquitous PlayStation 2, McNealy believes that a new limited edition version of the console will be released during this quarter. With the PS3 in short supply and Sony emphasizing the 10-year lifecycle of its PS2, it wouldn't be surprising to see them try to spark PS2 sales this holiday as well with a new limited edition.


With regards to the PS3, McNealy noted that the company's marketing blitz for the next-gen console is getting underway.


"Sony is bulking up its marketing at retail for the PS3, helping to explain the value proposition of the PS3 and putting 15,000 PS3 units for hands-on game play at retail in North America between the end of October and likely Black Friday, the retail day after Thanksgiving. We expect online capabilities to some degree for these boxes as well, which could likely be packaged for display at retail with Sony high-definition Bravia TV sets. We believe this type of vertical packaging is a win-win for both Sony and the retailers such as TGT, BBY, CC and WMT," he said.


[UPDATE] While speaking with SCEA vp of marketing Peter Dille today, we took the opportunity to question him on the analyst report concerning a new PSP.


"I've heard about that, but haven't seen that report. This would fall into the 'We do not comment on rumor or speculation' category, which I know is kind of the canned line, but honestly we don't have anything to add to that," Dille told GameDaily BIZ.


He continued, "What we're thinking is that the PSP has a very long life ahead of it. It's off to a great start; it's one of our fastest growing platforms. All of our consumer research shows that people love the system, and really what we're focused on is educating consumers about a lot of the multifunctionality that exists in the system. People have bought this system primarily to play games, and that's what it is first and foremost, but being able to download content, access the web, access music or videos on the system as well as some of the cool features we talked about tying into the PS3. Those are the things that we're focused on, and we believe that the PSP has a very strong and long life ahead of it. "

[mnuhaily22]

You can't go wrong with a PSP update other than that you will have to wait a year for an exploit to be found so you can run homebrew.

[emuking]

good redesign in my opinion, only psp though nothing about firmware or accesories
1. make it smaller and slimmer than first psp duh, like the bottom half of a ds lite
2.inserting umd should be like a toaster,(pop in and out) which will make the entire back one side of the psp with no lines between the mold,battery,umd drive,etc, so it should be more compact and durable
3. remoble battery should be smaller of course and be easier to remove,think of ds lite battery but with no need to use a screwdriver
4. better battery or battery life of course, 50% 100 % increase in battery life anybody
5. built-in 32gb or 64 gb nand flash memory, support for memory sticks too
6.matte black casing front and back, no scratches,stains,fingerprints
7. brighter screen like %60, i want it to be brighter than the ds lite screen
8. two analog sticks please, one on the right so come on sony, and the analog stick should be like small ps2 nubs, with l3 and r3 buttons okay, no slider analog and l2 and r2 buttons for psone emulation
9.64 mb or possibly 128 mb of ram
10. usb should be on the bottom for obvious reasons, keyboard gps and even camera would do fine on the bottom, since you will have it in your hands often and not on a stand or dock much
11. if possible built in gps and camera

long list but the psp would own if it has these improvements, i know there should be more improvement and redesign but this is the basic list of what should be done for a psp redesign, sorry for spelling and grammar errors, i just wish this would happen to the psp

[ACID]

Interesting how the prices are going to be equal or less then the actual PSP price.

[TCLCloud]

But this could just be a load of crap, i cant see why Sony would hold out on us all this time with tPSP updates if they're just going to re design it and make us buy that one..........

[808]

If this is true, then I hope Sony will be providing the upgraded PSPs for a discount to those who bought the older ones.

[Adrenalin]

emuking... what a noob post!

I think sony would be smart to release a new version of psp for a variety of reasons not to mention that dslite is owning them.

not sure about whether this will actually happen or not, sony isnt known for being smart (Duh!) XD

[jim80b]

If this is true, then I hope Sony will be providing the upgraded PSPs for a discount to those who bought the older ones.

haaahaaahaaaahaaaa

as if this will ever happen!


hope nobody from SCE is reading this...
if they replaced all old ones for new psp2 (free would be good, but even for a reduced price) it would cut the number of 1.5 users!

hell if the psp2 was good enough i'd be tempted to swap...

[Edshugeo]

The new PSP is something we get to hear about every couple of months. Eventually this will be true (like the broken clock that's right twice a day), assuming Sony survives the PS3.

[LilSwish722]

I hope this is true and i agree with Synthesis, sony needs to have a discount for people who bought the old psps. maybe we can trade in these psps and get a discount