December 12, 2004

New Hardware: Sony PSP (JP)

Platform: Sony PSP (JP)

Where: Shibuya Tsutaya
When: December 12
How Much: 24,667 yen (25,900 yen w/tax) * - Value Pack

In all the years I've been covering Japanese launches (which is to say, many years), I've never seen anything quite like what went down last night and this morning for PSP. Heading to Shinjuku last night at 11pm to check out the scene at Yodobashi Camera Game & Music, the most popular games shop in Tokyo, AndrewV and I were stunned to see almost 80 people lined up in front of the store already. We knew there would be lines, but nobody expected that many people to be out so early.

So, imagine our surprise when we found out that this was just the BACK of the line. As it turns out, by 11pm, there were 240 people lined up in total, waiting to purchase a PSP. The line was spread out all over the nearby streets. Meanwhile, over in Shibuya, the scene was still pretty quiet with a mere 10 people or so waiting around at Bic Camera.

We decided against staying out all night, since we'd both already preordered systems, so I went home to rest, and then headed back out to Shibuya on the first train just after 5am to try and secure another PSP at Bic. Anoop from IGN had mailed my phone a few minutes earlier notifying me that around 100 people were waiting at Bic, but that they still had plenty of units available. Sure enough, when I got there, they still had loads of stock, so I got in line with Anoop and waited for Bic to open their doors at 7am.

Shortly after arriving, I got a call from Vestal, who was heading to Shinjuku first to survey the scene at Yodobashi once more. I nearly dropped my phone when he told me how many people had gathered there by 5:30am: over thirteen hundred. Yes, more than a thousand people stood in line all night to be among the first to get their hands on a PSP. Can you believe that? Similarly impressive numbers were reported elsewhere -- 1,200 people waited at Ikebukuro Bic Camera, 300 waited at Shibuya Tsutaya, 180 or so at Shibuya Bic Camera, and so on. It was pretty crazy. By comparison, the Nintendo DS launch seemed like a non-event, even if they did push more hardware than the PSP could have ever hoped to (by virtue of the fact that they had more units ready to sell on launch day).

Anyway, around 6:45am, when I was in line at Bic, the most amazing thing happened to me and Anoop. A well-dressed, familiar-looking middle-aged Japanese guy walked past us toward the street corner with a small entourage around him. Nobody else seemed to recognize him, but Anoop and I picked him out on the spot: it was Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation and the boss of all PS operations at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. I broke out my camera to take a picture, and what does the guy do but stop and pose for me:

He then waved and started walking in our direction. He walked right up to us and asked us (in English) where we were from and what time we had started waiting in line. I was so shocked at that point that I don't even remember what he said afterwards, but I did chat with him a short bit, and I made sure to congratulate him before he departed. (Woulda been funny to ask him about the PSP's battery life or something, but I was too much in awe of the whole situation to crack any jokes.)

Soon after, we made our way inside Bic and bought our systems. Mission complete.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Starbucks above Shibuya Tsutaya, where we met up with JonnyRam, DCharlie, AndrewV and Greggman and messed around with our PSPs for a while. I have to say, the PSP is far and away the sexiest piece of game hardware I have ever seen. Nothing else comes close. It looks like a sportscar, for crying out loud. I haven't really messed around with any of the games much yet (we played a bit of wireless Ridge Racers, which was nice), but I'll try to drop some comments on those when I write them up here in the next couple of days.

Until then, I leave you with this image, taken during this morning's fun (click on the image to read the text):

Back soon!

Posted by john tv at December 12, 2004 04:23 PM