Pachter Has Regrets About PSP Go Rant
Michael Pachter is a name any fanboy can love or hate, depending on what he is saying that particular day. Generally Pachter offers relevant and deep analysis. On occasion the outspoken video games analyst, fires off some grade-A fanbait. Recently the loose lipped number cruncher called Sony’s new PSP Go a “rip-off”. Now he is singing a new tune. For those of you that missed his Michael’s latest tantalizing analysis…
“I’m sorry to say it. I don’t want to get bad fan mail from the Sony fanboys, but… They’re ripping off the consumer until they sell a couple million and if consumers don’t buy it then the price is going to come down. They’re making a lot more money on the PSP Go than the PSP-3000. And the PSP Go helps them because there’s no piracy.”
Whether Pachter has submitted to a drumbeat of fanboy ire or truly feels sorry we will never know. At least he took a moment to point out he misspoke in what falls just short of an apology.
“I sincerely regret the choice of words in my response to Geoff Keighley’s question in last week’s Bonus Round, where I said that Sony is ‘ripping off’ the consumer by pricing the PSP Go at $249.99. I made a poor choice of words, and I do NOT think that Sony is doing anything nefarious in choosing their pricing strategy. The company has the right to price its products at a point that they think is competitive, and has no obligation to sell products at lower than a competitive price. They have been subsidizing purchases of the PS3 since launch, to the tune of 22 million sold at a loss of $100 or more apiece (on average), so if they are able to make a profit on the PSP Go, more power to them. They are pricing at a point that positions the PSP Go competitively with the iPod Touch, and the PSP Go arguably has much more value than the Apple product. Notwithstanding my view that the price point is too high to generate more than a few million units sold, I really think my comment was unfair …”
Michael is just reiterating the obvious. Sony has taken a beating on the PS3 and they did so to deliver a box they feel is the best possible entertainment system ever. If they can sell the PSP Go at $249 more power to them, they are a company in the business to make money afterall. At this point, they have earned this profit.
Is $249 too much? Should Pachter be muzzled? Leave your comments below.
(We are just kidding Michael.)
5 Responses to “Pachter Has Regrets About PSP Go Rant”
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June 11th, 2009 at 10:49 PM
well yes it was a poor choice of words.
but i also think sony needs to reevaluate the price after the current iphone price cut and a sale like amazon has right now where you can buy a ps3 for $350. i dont know but i dont think they are going to sell for $250.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:59 PM
Apple was making a $200 profit off the iPhone when it was launched. Now THAT was a ripoff. Albeit, a very sexy, brilliantly designed one.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:19 AM
I think its worth it cause a lot of times I just leave my psp at home so I don’t lose umd’s or whatever. It becomes more combersome. With games right on the HDD and a decent amount of space your good to go.
It makes the PS3 a nice storage space for all your psp stuff too just swap things you want for your trip directly to the psp before you go(those memory sticks are so small you always worry about losing them).So it is good to have the 16GB right on the psp. It is expensive in times like these though.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:37 AM
Why do people give this ass attention anyway?
June 12th, 2009 at 4:16 AM
I’m surprised Michael even apologized. Normally he’s very unapologetic and instead kinda just says “Well if they don’t agree with me that’s fine. I have a lot of people who hate me for the things I say, I’m just being honest with my analysis” That’s not verbatim btw.
Between Microsoft and their 30-50 dollars a year rip off, the 100 dollar wifi unit rip-off, the 200 dollar 120GB HDD drive rip-off, the 10 dollar increase in price for new games when they were originally selling them at 50 on DVD but when Sony brought out the more expensive to produce blu-ray product Microsoft suddenly hiked up the prices on games they were still selling on the lower cost blu-ray, the tons and tons of premium themes (Sony has them too but we have more free themes than you can even count and WAY more than they do) plus the 200 dollar HD-DVD player/dvd upscaler rip-off (since the cost of the 360 skyrocketed to the PS3 price at launch)
And then don’t even get me started on the Wii add ons…
The point is… Sony uses a lot of non proprietary stuff. The PSP Go! has a market, but I think having a PSP GO! bundled with a couple vouchers or a price reduction in digital content would be a great thing in order to really be a full benefit to the customers. I mean there is a LOT of sacrifice to be made in order for an existing owner to support the new PSP. Time, money, effort, no game trade-ins, etc… The LEAST they could do is give us a way to eventually have the PSP Go! pay itself off by small savings on the Digital content and giving us a few free “Play anywhere anytime” titles for games we probably already bought on PS3.