Japan continues to show its love for the PSP-3000. To give you a sneak preview ahead of my usual monthly round-up of Japanese sales figures, the numbers for the week ending 12th December have the PSP-3000 way out in front again.
Monster Hunter Portable 3rd continues to drive sales of Sony’s UMD-touting handheld, no doubt boosted by the custom hardware released alongside the game. The ‘3000 sold just over 158k units during the week, while the game itself sold another 629.5k copies taking it total over the 2.5 million mark. (The PSPgo sold just 1,904 units placing it back behind the PS2 in sales.)
Now to further bolster Sony’s ageing handheld, which I expect we will see replaced within the next 12 months, comes news related to the next portable Final Fantasy release in the Landing of the Rising Sun.
This weekend Japanese gamers are crowding into Jump Festa ’11, one of Japan’s smaller video game events, but one at which Square Enix often like to break interesting news. This year that news started with the Japanese release date for Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy, the game which began our countdown of our most anticipated games of next year.
March 3rd 2011 is the date Japanese Final Fantasy fans will have been busily scribbling in their calendars today. The announcement of the release date was followed by the showing of a new trailer for the game. That trailer revealed that a PSP bundle, “Chaos and Cosmos Limited”, including an “original design” PSP will be available at launch. Presumably the PSP will be something along the lines Monster Hunter’s custom design.
As an indication that publishers are learning about the expectations gamers have regarding the pricing of digital content, Dissidia will be cheaper if purchased from the PSN Store. On UMD the game will cost ¥6,090 (c. £46) while the digital version will be just ¥4,980 (c. £38). Of course there will be retail discounts, as with any game, but the cheaper digital price will help to keep it competitive.
Another FF title making an appearance on Squeenix’s booth at Jump Festa is the recently announced Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection. The collection, due for release this spring, comprises both a PSP remake of the SNES FFIV game as well as its direct sequel Final Fantasy IV The After Years which first appeared on cell phones before latterly making the jump to WiiWare.
Via: andriasang
a inferior race
If Sony really wanted to push the PSPGo then they should try and get LE veersions of it instead of just the 3000.
metamorph
But they really don’t care about the GO as much; for them it’s like a side project. The 3000 has always been the flagship.
cam the man
The Japanese must like their ‘special edition’ hardware as there are loads released over there while there are hardly any released in Europe.