UK Retailers Taking Sony PSP Preorders - Release Date Slips to August, September?

Amazon.co.uk still lists the UK debut of the Sony PlayStation as 24 June 2005, but that date was called into question today. If High Street retailer Dixons’ PSP pre-order service is anything to go by, the eagerly anticipated handheld console will not appear here until August. The Dixons service, launched today, is offering up to two PSPs per person for £179 a pop. The pre-order page on the company’s web site lists 1 August 2005 as the “estimated” release date.

The PSP was originally to have made its European debut in March, though the release was put back to allow Sony to increase the number of consoles it had allocated to the US launch, which took place on 24 March. By then, Sony had already admitted that the European release date had slipped, though at the time, it said the delay was more a matter of “a few months rather than a few weeks”. The day before, Amazon.co.uk had update its PSP ETA to June, having already moved it from March to April.

The Register

The BBC says, “UK retailer Dixons said it made the decision because of demand and the lessons learned from the Nintendo DS success when it came out in March. It said the PSP was likely to cost about £179 and would be out ‘by the end of the summer’, most likely September.”