PSP 2 in March 2007?

Is this the reason why Target pulled the plug on UMD movies? Is this why there hasn’t been any price drop for the PSP? si1enc3ed from the QJ forums has posted magazine scans from PlayStation Magazine (not the official one though) with details of how Sony‘s plans on making “PSP 2.” The scans are rather poor and it was hard to decipher what’s written, so to spare you the trouble (and save your eyesight), here’s the introduction to the whole of the article. Thanks to milkman for the tip!

Rather than follow the traditional five-to-six-year product cycle of videogame consoles, Sony is expected to introduce an upgraded version of the PlayStation Portable in Japan before the end of March 2007. It will not be the “PSP 2” however, as Sony is instead eyeing a page(?) from Apple’s iPod strategy and upgrading the existing PSP’s specifications while keeping the retail price the same. It is also expected that, as Apple does with its generational iPod rollouts(?) the current PSP configuration will be discontinued when the new model goes on sale.

Sales of the handheld continues to be strong more than a year and a half after it was released in the U.S. It is believed that a combination of strong sales and plans for an enhanced version of the system is what has prevented Sony from dropping the price of the current PSP hardware itself. Instead, it introduced the PSP core pack earlier this year which offered a lower-priced alternative at the expense of previously bundled accessories.

The article in the scans goes into more detail of what changes are going to happen (The features they listed so far were built in 8GB flash memory, new configuration of the UMD slot -where The games will be inserted directly into the system- and a camera. The PSP 2 will be much smaller then the original. There has been no word about there being a second analog stick.) and what won’t.

How come I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box after writing this article?

Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Is this the reason why Target pulled the plug on UMD movies? Is this why there hasn’t been any price drop for the PSP? si1enc3ed from the QJ forums has posted magazine scans from PlayStation Magazine (not the official one though) with details of how Sony‘s plans on making “PSP 2.” The scans are rather poor and it was hard to decipher what’s written, so to spare you the trouble (and save your eyesight), here’s the introduction to the whole of the article. Thanks to milkman for the tip!

Rather than follow the traditional five-to-six-year product cycle of videogame consoles, Sony is expected to introduce an upgraded version of the PlayStation Portable in Japan before the end of March 2007. It will not be the “PSP 2” however, as Sony is instead eyeing a page(?) from Apple’s iPod strategy and upgrading the existing PSP’s specifications while keeping the retail price the same. It is also expected that, as Apple does with its generational iPod rollouts(?) the current PSP configuration will be discontinued when the new model goes on sale.

Sales of the handheld continues to be strong more than a year and a half after it was released in the U.S. It is believed that a combination of strong sales and plans for an enhanced version of the system is what has prevented Sony from dropping the price of the current PSP hardware itself. Instead, it introduced the PSP core pack earlier this year which offered a lower-priced alternative at the expense of previously bundled accessories.

The article in the scans goes into more detail of what changes are going to happen (The features they listed so far were built in 8GB flash memory, new configuration of the UMD slot -where The games will be inserted directly into the system- and a camera. The PSP 2 will be much smaller then the original. There has been no word about there being a second analog stick.) and what won’t.

How come I feel like I’ve opened Pandora’s box after writing this article?

Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]