US PSP Official Release Date

NOTD665

Gawd
Joined
May 20, 2002
Messages
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Anyone know it? I can't find any concrete information anywhere.

Also, is it possible to legally buy these guys in the US now?
 
There's nothing stopping you from importing a PSP. It's not illegal, otherwise NCSX and other importers would be shut down. However, you will be paying upwards of $500. No, I'm not exaggerating.

The only release date we have from Sony is "March." I think it was Amazon UK that listed the release date as March 18. Take that for what you will.
 
Hmm, any place other than NCSX where I could find one?

Besides ebay, of course.
 
To my knowledge NCS is the only stateside importer carrying them. You can go to Lik-Sang or Play Asia also.

I will have 2 available early next week. They are currently on the way from Tokyo! I haven't done any trading here but my Ebay handle is brentsg. I've been there since 99 and my feedback is +116 with a perfect 100%. No messing around.

Drop me a PM if you are interested. They won't be near $500.

Oh, neglected to mention that they are the Value Pack. This contains the AC adapter, soft carry case, wrist strap, battery, and memory stick.

B
 
I got really lucky and managed to get the value pack for $335 on ebay. It's cheaper to buy one there than from the import sites. Be sure to get Ridge Racers when you get one, it's probably the best launch game and it contains little Japanese. Lumines is another great game for it.
 
i bought mine on the forums here. its currently in transit to me... HURRY USPS, HURRY!
 
No official/confirmed release date yet...

but, Sony is going to have a 'Sony Japan Conference' on Feb. 1st. I would expect them to say somthing then, cause march would be only a month away.
 
I would have imported one but is everything going to be Japanese when teh US games start coming out. I know the games themselves wont but the UI is in Japanese right? or can you change the UI language?
 
the japanese games will have mostly japanese words. the american games will have american words.and you cant change it as far as i know, you can just change the language of the home menu screen, not the game.

the catch is, the games dont have region encodes, but when sony starts to deliver movies and music on the UMD's they will be region locked.

reasons on why im not importing:
-cost (the psp will be availiable for hundreds cheaper at the NA release, the price to import is terrible).
-region encoding on movies + music on umd
-the risk (if the psp i import comes to my house damaged or with dead pixels, its gonna be hard as fuck to get it fixed, and will take a long time)
-like i said, its only like a little more than a month away till we can have the american psp. i can wait.
 
I knew the games couldnt be changed I was just hoping the UI menus could. i might as well just wait now for the US release.
 
Only some of the menus on Ridge Racers are in Japanese. It didn't take too long to figure what they meant because most of them were accompanied by pictures. All the audio in Ridge Racers is also in English. Most games are not like this though. I don't see how anyone could go through Metal Gear Acid without knowing Japanese.
 
There was a poll on it 2 days ago on GameFaqs, it seemed to be leaning for Early 2006.

The poll for the new GC is still up.
 
FishHead said:
There was a poll on it 2 days ago on GameFaqs, it seemed to be leaning for Early 2006.
rofl...thats funny. :p
you gotta be one dumb fool to beleive the psp aint coming till 2006, IMO. ;)
 
That poll was for the PS3...I don't see any poll like that for a PSP. I believe someone at Sony announced that it would be out before the end of March.
 
Bad_Boy said:
rofl...thats funny. :p
you gotta be one dumb fool to beleive the psp aint coming till 2006, IMO. ;)

D'oh, thought the thread said PS3. :p

Sry, been reading up on it lately and it's in my head.

edit: PSP should be coming out in rougly 3-4 months IMO, maybe even 2.
 
Blauman said:
I would have imported one but is everything going to be Japanese when teh US games start coming out. I know the games themselves wont but the UI is in Japanese right? or can you change the UI language?

The XMB (Cross Media Bar, the name for the UI) supports six or so languages out of the box. Besides region coding for UMD movies and music (but not games), the only difference between the Japanese PSP and the North American PSP is the default XMB language setting. You can just set it to English and all will be well.
 
And then there is the rumor that the LCD will be quality-reduced for the North American release. The current Japanese screen is just incredible. It has to be seen to be believed. I've seen some suggestion that they will move to a lower cost LCD to reduce their per-unit losses.

I really hope it doesn't happen but stranger things have... There was a video comparing the two screens around.

B
 
I don't see why they would change screens. Sharp would be pretty damned angry to lose out on that market (Sharp currently makes the PSP's LCD.) The only problem Sony's having with the PSP is manufacturing the GPU, not the LCD.

Where'd you hear this?
 
its been known for a while that it will be march. (think back to CES around jan 5th)....its the specific date and price we dont know, and what we want to know.

FishHead said:
edit: PSP should be coming out in rougly 3-4 months IMO, maybe even 2.
highly doubt it. like i said above, about a month or so away we will have the NA psp, in march.
;)
 
Bad_Boy said:
the japanese games will have mostly japanese words. the american games will have american words.and you cant change it as far as i know, you can just change the language of the home menu screen, not the game.

That's only true depending on the game. Some import games have practically no Japanese in them; action games especially. I've imported Biohazard (Resident Evil) games for several years now and they all had more English than Japanese. Racing games typically have more English than Japanese as well.

The only real problem you'll face with Japanese is the specialty games or RPGs. I imported Shenmue for the experience of the atmosphere and pure dialogue (The Japanese voice acting sounded 100X better than the English dubbed version), but couldn't read a word of it except for the title.

Emret said:
Will we be able to record our own udm discs?

Is there even a UDM disk writer on the market? I don't think Sony will sell them as blanks (It's their format, and I doubt that they want to shoot themselves in the foot by giving us means of piracy from their own hands).
 
Terpfen said:
I don't see why they would change screens. Sharp would be pretty damned angry to lose out on that market (Sharp currently makes the PSP's LCD.) The only problem Sony's having with the PSP is manufacturing the GPU, not the LCD.

Where'd you hear this?

I'll look around b/c I can't remember right now. They also have Samsung signed on to make PSP LCD's and the test I saw compared a Sharp model to the Samsung and it wasn't pretty.

B

Sharp vs. Samsung Screen

Rob Fahey 11:08 29/03/2004
Massive supplier deal gives an insight into the scope of Sony's PSP ambitions

Sony has announced that electronics giants Samsung and Sharp are to provide the LCD screens for its forthcoming PlayStation Portable console, in a deal which could be worth up to €330 million annually.

An unnamed official from Japanese firm Sharp confirmed the deal to Bloomberg Japan, but declined to provide exact details of the order quantities - stating only that the scale of the contract was "huge" - which, in the context of a company as large as Sharp, is a meaningful statement in itself.

While officials from South Korean firm Samsung and Sony itself declined to comment on the supply contract, Samsung's last earnings statement in January mentioned a major project related to small LCDs which would make game consoles and PDAs, rather than mobile phones, into the largest target market for sub-10" screens.

IDC technology analyst Stanley Jeong told Bloomberg that the contract could be worth $400 million (€330 million) annually to the two LCD manufacturers, and could also create further opportunities for the supply of LCD control chipsets. The scale of the order - which is obviously an incredibly important deal for both companies, despite the fact that they are already world leaders in the LCD market - gives an insight into Sony's ambition for PSP, which the company has previously described as the 21st century's Walkman.
 
WickedAngel said:
That's only true depending on the game. Some import games have practically no Japanese in them; action games especially. I've imported Biohazard (Resident Evil) games for several years now and they all had more English than Japanese. Racing games typically have more English than Japanese as well.

The only real problem you'll face with Japanese is the specialty games or RPGs. I imported Shenmue for the experience of the atmosphere and pure dialogue (The Japanese voice acting sounded 100X better than the English dubbed version), but couldn't read a word of it except for the title.
like i said...
the japanese games will have mostly japanese words.
I did not say all.
 
Bad_Boy said:
like i said...

I did not say all.

For the most part, games you might want to import (games that will be popular here) are either mostly, or all English. Obscure little games (dating sims, etc) and RPGs will be all Japanese.

I have:
Lumines
Puyo Pop Fever
Puzzle Bobble
Mina no Golf
Ridge Racers

Of those the only one that is "mostly" Japanese is Golf and it is easy to figure out if you want to. I didn't need a FAQ or anything, just fiddle with it. The rest have little to no Japanese.

B
 
Those are just sample shots for the LCD screens, it has nothing to do with whatever these shots are taken from an actual PSP or not, if they were taken from psp's we dont even know if it was different brightness levels. No one knows for sure yet. No comparison shots. I don't see how one can make a comparison between Sharp and Samsung screens just by showing pics of LCD monitors. I'm sure Samsung produces higher end screens as well. Sony would only switch if Samsung could replicate the quality on a cheaper level as they loose lots of money when they sell the psp for so cheap. I dont even know if this lcd screen manufacture screen change has been confirmed yet.

we will see in march.
 
Bad_Boy said:
Those are just sample shots for the LCD screens, it has nothing to do with whatever these shots are taken from an actual PSP or not, if they were taken from psp's we dont even know if it was different brightness levels. No one knows for sure yet.

I believe that there was a comparison video at one time but I can't find it. I wouldn't be surprised if those were different since the hues tend to differ. The Samsung seemed to have a blue push in that pic.

But there are legit press releases that show Samsung as a manufacturer. Of course no one knows what will happen.

Basically the rumor I kept hearing was that they early Japanese launch models would all be made in Japan with the Sharp screens, then production would shift to China with the Samsung screens because of the per unit loss they incur now. Who knows what the truth is...guess we'll find out.

B
 
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