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Sony Portables (Games)

Sony May Outsource PSP Production 82

Posted by Zonk from the demand-outstrips-production dept.
SCE president Ken Kutaragi has confirmed that PSP production may be outsourced to another company, as demand for the PSP is already outstripping Sony's ability to produce. GamesIndustry.biz has the story, which points out that the handheld console is still not released in Europe, an event anticipated in early September. From the article: "At present, there is only one factory producing PSP consoles - the Kisarazu facility east of Tokyo, which manufactures around one million units per month. Sony has previously announced plans to double this figure by the summer as it continues the fight to compete with Nintendo."
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Sony May Outsource PSP Production More

Sony May Outsource PSP Production

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  • oh. my. god. (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @03:42PM (#12698177) Homepage
    This is the most exciting news regarding third party manufacture I've seen all day. I think I'm going to have to go lie down.
    • I kind of agree...why should we care?
      • "I kind of agree...why should we care?"

        Because outsourcing is a big evil word. Problem is, nobody here hates Sony. So imagine if Microsoft were doing it. Then we could all regail each other with tales about how Microsoft is destroying America!
        • So imagine if Microsoft were doing it. Then we could all regail each other with tales about how Microsoft is destroying America!

          Indeed, even if they were outsourcing it from Mexico to Singapore.
        • I despise Sony *greatly*.
        • yea, but all their manufacturing is done in japan, so the outsourcing has no effect on the US (or UK) economy...if microsoft was outsourcing, i'd be pissed because it's an american company, those are american jobs.
        • Really? I hate Sony.

          The fact that production is outsourced should not be a surprise to anyone. Sony is not your local Mom n' Pop tech store, they're a global corporation, concerned with nothing more than making money. Just like Microsoft, just like Nintendo, just like GM... (et cetera, ad nauseum).

    • it is good news for europeans and others who want to be sure there is an ample supply of PSP's when they're ready to buy.

      my only concern is that they've gotta keep their QC up to par, especially on a device that has already had so many manufacturing glitches from the first runs.

      • actually i agree with the AC here. i kept hearing horror stories from day one about how horrible they were manufactured. but of the ones that i had seen no one had any problems whatsoever.

        i held off buying mind until recently because of the rampant rumors. of the ones that i had the chance to see in passing and owned by friends, etc... no one had any problems/ complaints whatsoever [maybe that it takes a while to get used to the analog nub, but thats it]. i bought my own and realized that while defect sure

  • They could just... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Admiral Ackbar 8 ( 848624 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @03:50PM (#12698240)
    ...pull some of the PSPs off the shelf that are just collecting dust at stores here in the US!

  • One million per month? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Burpmaster ( 598437 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @03:59PM (#12698343)

    This doesn't make sense. According to The Magic Box [the-magicbox.com], only 870,000 have been sold this year in Japan. That's only 174,000 per month, and I can't imagine that the demand is high enough in other parts of the world, especially not enough to make 2 million per month necessary.

    • Something's not right with the numbers on those charts. The first thing I noticed was the total sold for Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song. The top chart reports that 365,886 copies were sold through 5/22. But the bottom chart has the same game having sold 375,161 copies at the end of the prior week. And in the console chart, if you take the total units sold in the week from 5/9 to 5/15, add the sales from 5/16 to 5/22, only the GBA and Gamecube match the total for the week ending 5/22. I wonder what their
    • Someone give this dude mod points for actually trying to do the math. Everybody knows Sony management is trying to cut cost so their monthly million dollar bonuses are not affected.

    • Has the PSP launched in Europe yet? I've pretty much stopped caring about the system so I haven't really been following it.

      If it hasn't, the aggregate demand from the US + Japan + a European launch could be what requires the sudden production jump.

      I don't think there's any way in hell it's just us + japan requiring it.
    • Between the US and Japan, they had sold 3 million PSPs by the end of the March quarter.

      If only 870K were sold in Japan, that means that they sold 2.2 million in the US between launch (March 24th) and the end of the quarter (March 31st). I don't think that the PSP is launched yet in Europe.

      From the occasional article, I gather that the PSP is outselling the DS about 4 to 3.

      • 870k is the total for this year. (I just quoted that number to point out what rate they are selling at.) The PSP launched in 2004 and probably sold plenty at launch. I recall seeing that the US and Japan sales figures were pretty close.

        As for DS vs. PSP, what I heard was that the DS had a much better launch. After their launches, the PSP started slowly catching up, although it still has a long way to go. Then Nintedogs was released, and it boosted DS sales [ign.com] a lot. According to the link I gave earlier, the D

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • The 2004 numbers are easy. About 510,000 were shipped to stores. It is assumed all of them were sold. Keeping track of the Media Create numbers, the PSP has sold about 1.25 million units to consumers life to date in Japan. [cubed3.com]

          The 3 mil number was projected # shipped (or sold to retailers) worldwide. Since the end of 2004 there hasn't been a Japanese shortage. There were probably a few hundred thousand in the system. They promised 1 million units for the American launch. That adds up to about the 3 million un
          • The American numbers aren't so easy to find.

            There's probably a good reason for that: these things are stacked about a mile high at every store I go to. I'm in NYC, obviously the biggest market in the United States, and while shopping for a TV last week I went to Best Buy and Circuit City, and as there just always happen to be game stores around electronics stores, I also visited several EB's and GameStops.

            Every single one of them had a big stack of PSP's. CC even had a big sign that said "AS ADVERTISE
            • thats hilarious! i just bought mine in NYC myself. every store i go to in my hometown is sold out. i was out of town in NYC and STILL had to go to four different stores [EB, virgin, gamestop, etc...] before i was able to buy one of the last two that they had.

              i couldnt make this stuff up if i tried. the psp /has/ been hard to find. at least at places other than your MAJOR MAJOR retailers [like maybe a bestbuy or walmart] who buy a truckload of em anyways.
      • Japanese PSP Sales Nearly Double DS -
        "Media Create has released its latest hardware sales charts covering the week ending March 20th, 2005. Sales in general saw a slight dip, and PSP sales were nearly double that of the DS. Xbox saw a slight increase in sales, likely due to the critical acclaim that Fable received from publications such as Famitsu.

        PlayStation Portable: 43,644 (Annual: 580,120)
        PlayStation 2: 40,270 (Annual: 602,316)
        Nintendo DS: 22,446 (Annual: 429,545)
        Game Boy Advance SP: 11,013 (Annual: 19

    • Re:One million per month? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @11:04PM (#12701724) Homepage
      Others have questioned those numbers, but I'd like to point out that the numbers in question are sell-through (selling to end users), but Sony has to manufacture for sell-in (units sent to retailers). If Walmart wants 30 units in every story, Walmart gets 30 units in every store, no matter how well they are selling. Most retailers don't like selling out, and will keep a cushion around. As it doesn't look like the PSP will die as a platform any time soon, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone wanted a few month's stock for cushion. Add to that impending launch in new territories and the short-term boom that goes with that, and it's plausable that they're not just outsourcing to save money. They may just need to placate retailers that they can produce in quantity, and they may need the extra handhelds to move into new territories.

      Of course, they may just be trying to save a few bucks by moving away from their Tokyo production plant. Se La Vie.

      • The thing is, in the long term, there is no difference between the sell-through rate and the rate at which they are sold to retailers. They may diverge early on, but ultimately there is no reason to produce them faster than consumers buy them.

        The best course of action is to have enough capacity to meet the demand once things stabilize plus enough slack capacity to accomodate any spikes in demand.
  • As others have already pointed out, there is no way that Sony has been selling a million a month.

    Sony is looking to outsource the production of the PSP to cut costs. They already loose an arm and a leg on every unit produced and this is a way to reduce the amount of bleeding.
    • Yeah, it's funny how "we need to outsource to higher production facilities to meet increased demand" sounds better to the stockholders than "we need to outsource to a cheaper labor market cause we're losing our shirts."
  • If they do outsource production , they do it to a company that is going to actualy test the TFT screens .
    I know all the crap about Dead Pixels are to be expected , But as i just said its crap .
    The screen is really rather small and i have 2 dead pixels on it which is completly silly .
    IThey are not that annoying and are out of the way but its the principle of the thing , on a screen of that size its fairly resonible to expect no dead pixels and from what ive heard its fairly commen on the PSP.
    • i heard all about the pixels and the fuss its causing. and so im holding off till there are more games i want, and better design/less dead pixels and such.


      looks good overall. just to much small pixel problems they dont care about for me to spend that much money on something i wont use allot
      • It honestly is a great little machine , if only got one game so far and a 512MB memory card but i do use it as a rather MP3 player / vidio player and games machine .
        and i only reall yhave 2 dead pixels which , whilst unaceptable is not really that noticable.
        Though i have heard a few folks who have had upwards of 20 pixels dead

    • Re:Hopefully (Score:3, Informative)

      by Grey Ninja ( 739021 )
      You know, I've not yet met a PSP owner who HASN'T had any dead pixels. I think that would be a worthy news story if someone could find one without any. ;)

      My DS didn't have any dead pixels. I bought one for my GF for Christmas though, and she had a dead one. A quick trip back to the store, and we were handed a brand new one. Sony has a policy of not accepting it back unless you have 13 dead pixels. Nintendo will take it back if there's a single dead pixel.

      I have to say that Sony craftsmanship is a
      • I have no dead pixels on my launch day unit. Neither does my roommate or about 5 of the 7 other people I know who own one.
      • I have no dead pixels on my first PSP. I was pleasantly suprised given everyone whining incessantly about them.

        On my second PSP, I have probably 4 or 5 always-on pixels. I considered (briefly) exchanging it until I realized the only time I could even tell they were there was on the initial bootup screen where it's all black. Otherwise I haven't been able to tell they're there.

        All you DS whiners also have to realize that dead pixels on the DS are significantly worse than dead pixels on the PSP. The

        • This statement is laughable. The PSP is an amazingly sexy work of engineering. Anyone who thinks otherwise is blind, hasn't seen one, or is in denial.

          I'll bite. But I would hardly call a square button that sticks [gamespot.com], and dead pixels galore very good craftsmanship. It says to me that Sony doesn't even bother checking to see if their screens work. And I hear that they don't take a PSP back unless it has 13 dead pixels. Which says a lot about their confidence in their product, given that I can send back m
          • Agreed, I bought two PSPs and they both had 2-3 stuck pixels. Sony build quality has always been poor, right from the first PS1 with its dead CD drive and tendency to overheat. To their credit they usually iron the out the problems but at the cost of the early adopter who finds all these problems for them.

  • Ad paid for by Sony (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gogo0 ( 877020 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @04:49PM (#12699006)
    HOLY CRAP, THEYRE SELLING LIKE MAD! WE CANT MAKE PSP's FAST ENOUGH!!
    Sony PSP! Only $250 at your nearest store! Go get one before theyre all gone forever!

    What, this doesnt seem like marketing BS to the submitter or editor?
    • Very good call there. Agree completely with this.

      People want what they can't have. Sony puts out a statement saying that they can't have PSP as there "aren't enough" - 99.5% of people go to their local store expecting to be turned down for a PSP - and find a crate of 500 PSP's open behind the counter, with the store manager offering free money with each one.

      Needless to say, I doubt it did much good.

  • Quality differences (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yotto ( 590067 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @04:58PM (#12699095) Homepage
    I'd be concerned about the quality of an outsourced PSP, but conisdering the reported problems with the Sony-Produced ones (I don't have one myself, mostly due to the fact that I have trouble droping $250 on something that will break if I sit on it yet will fit in my back pocket), maybe 3rd party PSPs will be better.
    • Its unlikely that an outsourced PSP will be diffrent than the one manufactured by Sony. The only diffrence is that it will be made in a factory not directly under control of Sony.

      Manufacturers do this all the time, If they are not able to make a part or product, they send the specifications to someone who can. Unless they expect to be needing that part for a long time, its cheaper than ramping up production to make it themselves.
  • Outstrip Sony's ability to produce them in quantity? Or outstrip Sony's ability to produce them with quality? I think it's the latter. Over the past month, I've been to my three local Target stores. They each have about 20 PSPs sitting behind the glass cases, in each store. I haven't gotten one myself because I'm still paranoid about defects. But I don't have any worries about finding one to purchase.
  • I'd be interested if Sony announced this a few weeks/months after launching, but now? This just says cheap last minute marketing attempt. Run the numbers and Nintendo is killing Sony in the handheld industry. Sony hasn't dented the GBA, the DS is outselling the PSP, DS games are outselling PSP games, and Nintendo isn't taking a huge loss for each DS unit sold. Throw in PSP defects and the fact that they delayed the European launch (read : STILL hasn't launched) and Sony is getting burned worse than Microsof

    • Sony hasn't dented the GBA, the DS is outselling the PSP, DS games are outselling PSP games, and Nintendo isn't taking a huge loss for each DS unit sold.

      I can't help wondering if it doesn't have something to do with the fact that you can't actually see a PSP anywhere.

      When I go into stores, they all have a display model Nintendo DS you can play with. I haven't seen a PSP anywhere, and I don't know anyone who owns one. The stores won't open them up for demo either. What are Sony thinking--that we're all

  • As many have already posted, Sony is almost certainly not selling a million PSPs per month. And they are losing a lot of money for each hardware sale. Both of these are strong incentives to reduce costs. Indeed, the slippage of the European release date may have more to do with throttling the money hemorrhage than a problem supplying PSPs to that market. So I would wildly speculate that what they really want to do is drop the price before Xmas and perhaps even act as a foil to the Xbox 360 release, not to m
  • I bought mine a few days ago, it's insane how many features they've managed to pack in there. The place I got it from (Best Buy) had only one non-demo model left. The sales guy said they don't often keep a stock of them, so one can assume that (at least where I live) the PSP is doing pretty well. Several friends of mine waited on the DS until the PSP came out, I think once they get a look at it they'll be out there picking one up. :)
  • demand for the PSP is already outstripping Sony's ability to produce

    I spit Jolt Cola all over my monitor, you insensitive clod!

  • Love or hate Sony, why be a liar? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here educate yourselves and quit making baseless accusations and stupid comments.

    "Twelve million units apiece of the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable consoles will be shipped worldwide in the financial year through to March 31st, 2006, according to the latest projections released by Sony.

    The figures would bring worldwide shipments of the PSP to around 15 million units by the end of the financial year, while the PlayStation 2 - which currently has a global installed base of well over 80 million unit
    • In response to your subject line, a question. Which is better, to lie and show your face, or tell the truth anonymously? If it's true, why be afraid? Of course, if you don't have a slashdot account, it would explain it. However, there isn't a reason to not have a slashdot account now, is there? ;)

      And not to nitpick, but there is a definitive difference between "shipped" and "sold". There were approximately 6 million "shipped" copies of ET: The Extraterrestrial for the Atari that were bull-dozed into land f

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