Brits won't get PSP price cut, says Sony UK gamers aren't going to enjoy the benefits of the €50 (£44) price cut Sony has just applied to the PlayStation Portable. PSPgo According to the consumer electronics giant, its Euro-Yen exchange rate wobbles that have allowed it to knock the PSP from €180 to €130 (£159 to £115), but with the Sterling-Yen rate being where it …
Yes, they are compulsory if:
---You want to use network play
---Play newer games (these demand more recent firmware)
So saying the updates are not compulsory is a total crock.
Sony sold the PS3 as advertised with the "Other OS" option and then arbitrarily removed it. Why consumer organisations the world over haven't spanked Sony to hell and back beats me.
There again, Sony were not adequately punished for the rootkits. (Yes, I know they were on BMG discs, but BMG is just a subsidiary of Sony, ergo Sony are responsible)
It's true that the firmware upgrade wasn't compulsory, but if you don't do it then you can't play games online, which is also one of the features people paid for.
So, having paid your money for both features, you're given the choice of losing Unix or losing online games. Making a choice was compulsory.
It never fails to amaze me that when the exchange rate is in our favour that it is never passed on, but when it's the other way around it is. (Or isn't in this case. iygwim)
And it's not just sony. Seems all the big corporates are guilty. Have you seen how much cheaper a mac is in the us?
Good to see rip off Britain is still alive and well.
mine has been languishing in my drawer gathering dust for the best part of 5 years..... totally shit handheld, and doesn't have Professor Layton!!!!
UMD was such a shocking failure, look at what Nintendo did with their handhelds - made them all the more interesting and after the recent marketing campaign, I need a 3DS now....
Most important bit of info is missing; is this on the PSP-go (As Pictured), or the PSP-3000 (The latest revision of the "Classic" PSP)?
Because PSP-go is a really tough sell at any price: It has no disk drive, so you can't use store bought PSP Games, Only PlayStation Network games. This immediately cuts you out of the 2nd hand/cut price games market, and a lot of games don't have a PSN Release (Lots of the older games, but post-go games as well, such as Kingdom Hearts)
in contrast, the PSP-3000 has PSN Access and a UMD Drive, giving you the best of both worlds, as long as you give it a decent sized memory stick Duo.
You only ever pay VAT in one EU country. As a 'normal' consumer, you'll almost always pay VAT in the 'supplier country'.
- This is the reason Amazon's "Indigo Starfish" exists, and why you pay Luxembourg VAT on Skype transactions. Internet businesses like that can play the EU VAT system for maximum benefit.
On the other hand, if you're a business then you can usually avoid paying foreign VAT at all.
Life gets more fun when shipping EU imports directly to the customer...
I'm happy enough with my DS, despite SCEA CEO Jack Tretton's comment "no self-respecting 20-something is going to be sitting on an airplane with one of those. He's too old for that"*. :)
*http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6307549.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B6
However 1 Euro buys 122.2 Yen (google rate for simplicity), 1 GBP buys 138.6 YEN
So in Yen the UK version costs 18016Yen and the Euro version 14058Yen giving a 28% difference in price. Since the VAT rate is fairly similar throughout the Euro zone roughly 18-21% and the UK is 20% there doesn't seem to be any sensible reason for the difference....
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