This one goes out to all our European friends. What’s the initial reaction to the PSP’s launch in comparison to the DS and GBA over there? Are people still excited about the DS? Does Gizmondo have any buzz?
[Source: Bloomberg]
European Handhelds
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Anonymous
Well im from the uk and people here seem to love anything with the name playstation in it, psp will sell millions here people love it but after a while they will realise that it hasnt got much good games and a poor lineup of games, i think once DS games like Nintendogs ands Advance wars is released sales will rise, so nintendo better hurry up with them games as we always get them months after.
mo
Not much to report from the UK at the moment. Shops opened at midnight, people waited in line etc etc etc – the usual ritual
http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=468
http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=11226
Give it a week or two for reports of how many PSP’s were sold in the launch period.
Anonymous
very hyped up by media
mo
I have the perfect tonic for you. See here (or click on my name).
http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=8190
Archaic
We had our launch this week in Australia also. It seemed fairly low key to be honest. I didn’t see any TV ads or anything, though it was certainly pumped in retailers catalogues. Given how they were emphasising “limited stocks”, and that they still have huge stocks available at any game/electronics/department store, it seems like it might have been a failure to me. Of course, since the launch was mid-week, rather than on a weekend, we might not see real sales until tomorrow.
howzy22
The Ds had more advertising here in NZ then PSP (of which i saw none) and most ppl here dont know what eithier are tbh, unless they are gamers.
But there was a midnight launch for the psp here, unlike the DS…
chuuka
im from germany and i can say there are not many people who own a psp here.
on the first day 172000 units were sold, and i dont think that on the end of the year they wont get over 1 million.
the only advertisement i´ve ever saw was in a magazine. in tv only big electronic shops make advertisement for it.
not like Nintendo. befor the start of the DS they toured around the country with the “Touched”-tour and the tv-advertisements are funny every time i watsch them.
i think the psp will not doing good because of its price. and it wont get any cheaper till the release of the ps3.
and the only good game they have is nfs underground!
Sturek
I wasn’t home during the launch 🙁 So I don’t have a lot of info, but I met someone who pre-ordered a PSP (a special bundle with SPiderman 2 (ofcourse) another UMD-movie and a game) and he was pretty excited about the PSP (of course), but even he admitted that there are just no really good games available although there are several games in the shelves…
Oh and where’s the promised GTA for launch ?!?
The only electronics store in my town is sold out (but they only had 20 PSPs in the beginning)…
I’m really interested in knowing how the PSP did….
Nathan Willard
Nintendo is showing better support on its european division, with trying to improve on its release dates (Delays), and launching of the Nintendo Wifi Connection roughly around the same time globally, I think that Sony will have a hard time trying to ofset Nintendo’s reign of power.
Personally I think after the way sony has treated there loyalyst fans who importated the units and after the long delay many europeans have been disappointed.
I expect moderate initial sales on launch and then a gradual deline in sales, i dont think it will compare to the nintendo DS strong support.
With Nintendo backing up online gaming a 100% I think as that grows so will DS sales, where as SOny only supports its online features maybe about 10% so for sony it is more like a gimmick then a integral part of gaming.
Myke Greywolf
Here in Portugal, it was all about the PSP.
The week before launch was an authentic media blitz, with TV ads on prime time, big time coverage by most newspapers, technology and gaming mags, outdoor ads (at least in Lisbon), and even an airplane with a banner ad, flying over the beaches of the Lisbon beach coast. I live near the coast, so I got to see it fly over my building several times. Irritating, to say the least.
The typical lines formed before midnight on most major Lisbon retailers like Fnac, Worten and El Corte Inglés. Apparently, initial shipments to those retailers sold out, although most other shops still seem to have a lot of them in stock. Curiously, other than Lisbon (and presumably Oporto), most other minor cities’ retailers didn’t even seem to carry the PSP. I’ve read stories of people driving 50-100 km to be able to get one in the major cities.
The next day, the launch was all over the news on TV, with extensive coverage of the retailers where lines had formed, asking people’s impressions and expectations, the usual stuff. It seemed to me like a marketing manoeuver focused on those few select retailers, creating the impression of immeasurable hype, with the rest of the country barely giving a shit about the PSP.
Even so, gamers’ attitudes reflected the situation of gaming in Portugal: gaming is synonymous with the Playstation brand, and Nintendo isn’t even a factor anymore, even in the portable arena, with the arrival of the PSP.
Portugal is a terrible, terrible country to be a Nintendo fan.
saint_john_vs_saliman
i confirm Myke Greywolf’s comments. portugal’s the worst place on earth to be a ninty boy. well, maybe bangladesh’s worse…
anyway the hype around psp is enormous. tv news talk of it as the greatest invention since the weel, the big N’s ds is not spoken of, or if it is, it’s just to be briefly remarked as “another” nintendo sales failure or as a not-so-kool-kids-only console.
the handheld war is already lost in Portugal, mostly due to dogma that ninty is for retarded kids, geek ppl and… well, that’s pretty much it.
what a shame…