Sony Shows, But Provides Few Details On, Portable PSP.

This article reports on the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld game and entertainment device unveiled by Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). For all the anticipation surrounding Sony's event, which was announced just before CES and held off-site at the Hard Rock Hotel, the company failed to disclose the two details everyone was waiting for: its retail price in North America, and the exact date it will arrive. The event, which was run by SCEA president Kaz Hirai, featured an appearance by Sony BMG hip-hop artist Xzibit, who demonstrated how easy it was to move music from a personal computer to the device. Hirai said that PSP, which shipped in Japan on December 2, sold 510,000 units during its first 18 days on the market, and was on target to reach its goal of selling 3 million PSP units by the end of its fiscal quarter at the end of March 2005. Hirai did not take questions from the audience, so several questions remain unanswered, most importantly, how PSP will be priced in the U.S., where Nintendo is already successfully selling its new handheld game system, the dual-screen Nintendo DS, which is projected to sell 5 million units by the end of March 2005. Unlike the Nintendo DS, the PSP is a multi-purpose handheld entertainment system that can play three-dimensional games, music and videos. PSP plays new Universal Media Discs, a compact proprietary optical disc format that holds 1.8 gigabytes of data.