The World's Local Blog

PSP US launch

It is here! Finally people in the US can get their hands on the PSP. It's definately not a usual day. Every corner, people are lining up since early morning, to spend 300-400+ bucks for this portable gaming device. Game stores sold out their first shipment of the PSP weeks ago, with the preordering, so everyone's hoping to be one of many who are early enough to buy it from other electronic stores. BestBuy opens early today, 8am instead of 10am, with 100s of people already in line. I arrived at my local Best Buy store around 7:30am and was surprised by the number of people who were already in line. I don't know about you, but this is the first time I see people lining up this early, this far, for gaming at my local level.

Of course, this is nothing compare to those who camped at a national level, like those who were camping day into night at Metreon in San Francisco.

Time to look back at PSP Japan release, and the how-to we had our eyes on.

via: Cnet

update: I went in to Best Buy today(03/25/05, the next day) and it is, not surprisingly, already sold out. Obviously there have been reports saying that Sony won't have enough for the demand, which is exactly why so many people didn't mind sitting/standing in the cold waiting for stores to open.

-more pics and review

update 03/26/05: Definately they are all gone, including some of the most anticipated games too. I went around about 7 stores in my area today, trying to find the Ridge Racer PSP (no idea why my local Best Buy didn't have it on Thursday) and they all are gone. All stores have signs posted "due to high demand, the PSP is currently out of stock." None of the 7 stores have Ridge Racer nor Metal Gear Acid (I guess they are the top 2 games among early-adopter gamers right now.) Only 1-2 stores have a few Lumines left, but most of the other games are still available. Now lets hope the next shipment isn't so long away. (It's scary to think that 1,000,000 of $250+game$ units can go this quickly. And oh, it seems like all online stores are out of it(PSP) too.)

correction 03/31/05: Ok it's been a week and the numbers are in. It's been reported that PSP sales aren't that spectacular. Only 300,000+ are sold with 200,000- leftovers in a number of stores. A lot of media have been reporting that, while PSPs have been flying off the shelves in gaming/electronic stores, there are quite a lot left over in general-lower-end-gaming stores like Target. Personally I didn't find evidence of that in my area, but I guess nationwide is diffferent.

posted by Knot @ 5:43 PM