There’s still most of a year to go before Sony’s powerful new handheld, the so-called Next Generation Portable, or NGP, comes to the hands of consumers. Assuming of course that the company hits its planned holiday 2011 release window, which can sometimes be an iffy thing in the tech world. Before the Sony warehouses can become filled with these handheld mini-PlayStation 3s however, they’ll first have to be emptied of older stock.
You know what that means, right? Price-slashing time! Sony will be dropping the price of its PlayStation Portable handhelds, specifically the PSP-3000 model, down from $169.99 to $129.99 starting this Sunday, according to an update from PlayStation Blog. Additionally PSP Entertainment Pack bundles, which pack in games and UMD movies with the portable gaming devices, will settle in at the new price of $159.99.
Interestingly, there is no mention at all of the PSP Go. Sony must surely have plenty of extra stock on that one. The late-model PSP offers a smaller form factor and a healthy amount of built-in flash memory, but it comes at the cost of the PSP-standard UMD drive. All content is digitally delivered to the device via the PlayStation Store. Unfortunately, the handheld came along late in the PSP’s lifespan, after many gamers had already invested in a UMD library. With no way to transfer that content onto the Go, it failed to catch on. The price also proved to be a sticking point for many, hitting the market with a $250 value. Amazon currently has the PSP Go listed for roughly $225, which is actually more expensive than both the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii consoles.
The PSP definitely falls short of what it might have been had a little more work been put into figuring out exactly what it should be, but there’s a solid library of games available for it. If you’re looking for a new way to game on the go and can’t stand to wait for either the NGP or Nintendo’s March-releasing 3DS, the PSP just became a whole lot more attractive an option.
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