Sony drops PlayStation Portable price down to $129.99

By Adam Rosenberg February 25, 2011

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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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

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PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is stepping down, with successor yet to be named

Playstation CEO and president, Jim Ryan, stands in front of a blue wall with Playstation button symbols illuminated.

Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan is retiring after 30 years. The PlayStation boss will formally leave his role in March 2024 with a successor yet to be named.

Jim Ryan has been working with PlayStation since 1994 when he joined Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. Since then, he's become the key figurehead for the PlayStation brand, similar to Phil Spencer's role within Xbox. His most recent success has come from the launch of the PlayStation 5, which has already surpassed a 40 million unit milestone. Today, Sony announced that Ryan plans to retire from the role.

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PlayStation Portal: release date, price, specs, and more

The PlayStation Portal alongside Sony's other new headsets.

After being teased under the code name Project Q, we now have a clear picture of just what Sony's latest hardware will be. Officially called the PlayStation Portal, this curious device has many gamers a bit confused about what it is, what it can do, and who it is for. Is it a new handheld, a streaming device, or something in-between? With all the information finally available, we are here to clear up any confusion about what this latest piece of PlayStation hardware really is.
Price
The PlayStation Portal will retail for $200 at launch.
Release date
You can expect the PlayStation Portal to arrive later this year, on November 15, 2023.
Specs

The most important thing to know about the PlayStation Portal is what it really is. This is not a dedicated handheld like the PSP or Vita that you can play games on natively, but instead can only be used as a companion to your PlayStation 5. This device is only intended to stream games from your main console to the screen via Wi-Fi for remote play. Games cannot be played locally on the device, meaning it cannot function without connecting to your PS5. However, you do not need to be on the same network as your PS5. As long as your PS5 is in rest mode and connected to Wi-Fi, you can connect to it through another Wi-Fi network to play, provided the connection is strong enough.

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Sony’s cloud handheld, the PlayStation Portal, will only stream certain games

Astro's Playroom booting up on the PlayStation Portal.

Sony has unveiled the price for its upcoming cloud gaming handheld, as well as an official name for the device: PlayStation Portal. However, one significant caveat to its functionality might sour people's interest in the handheld: It only supports PS4 and PS5 native games that the owner purchased.
PlayStation VR2 games can't be streamed to PlayStation Portal, which does make sense. More bafflingly, though, is the fact that the PlayStation Blog post states that "games that are streamed through PlayStation Plus Premium’s cloud streaming are not supported." That means you shouldn't pick up PlayStation Portal expecting to stream some PS3 and PS4 games available through PlayStation Plus Premium to the device. That's certainly an odd omission when it's currently PlayStation's most notable cloud gaming effort.
Although Microsoft is more closely associated with cloud gaming, Sony beat it to releasing a dedicated cloud gaming device. PlayStation Portal was first teased as Project Q during May's PlayStation showcase, but now, a PlayStation Blog post more clearly explains what we can actually expect from the handheld. Most importantly, we learned that PlayStation Portal will cost $200, which puts it underneath the cost of a Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S, and other cloud gaming devices like the Logitech G Cloud Handheld.
As for what you're getting for that price tag, it's essentially a decent screen attached to two halves of a DualSense controller. The controllers on each side share all the functionality of the DualSense, including things like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. In-between is an 8-inch LCD screen that streams games over Wi-Fi at up to a 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. All in all, that's fairly solid for a cloud gaming handheld that is this cheap.
Sony confirmed that the PlayStation Portal will have a 3.5mm audio jack, but also used the same blog post to unveil two new wireless audio options. There's the Pulse Elite wireless headset that features a retractable boom mic and a charging hanger and Pulse Explore wireless earbuds that offer similar audio quality in earbud form.
None of these products are available for preorder or have a specific release date just yet, but they are all expected to launch before the end of the year.