Have you guys priced the PSP and PSP Go in Australia?
Don't :)

Just think how lucky you are and move on. I'm sure many of our European friends can attest to being ripped too. Importing is the only solution to avoid wallet-rape here (our dollar is strong against the US dollar again).

Peter R. sez:
"If people stick with or buy the older PSPs, they aren't losing anything but Bluetooth and PSP mini support."
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No, all games downloaded for PSP are identical for all PSPs, so even the "small download" PSP Minis will be for all PSPs.

They released Europe maps too. But the rest of the world got stiffed.

I admire how they've pushed the capabilities of a humble unit the way they have, but yeah, they could have made it worldwide. MapThis! is the only (homebrew) solution I know of that will use the thing, and it's a surprisingly excellent application, but you need to hack together some maps, and of course you need custom firmware to run it.

My eyes had to held back the information contained in the picture for as long as it could, to protect my brain from shock.

It's as if the designer's goals were something along the lines of:
"yes, we can make this far smaller and less obtrusive, but we need to keep the roundness consistent with the unit, we need to express this circle motif..."

The inelegant monstrosity is the result of that thinking. I would expect this accessory would be one of those where the Chinese non-Sony design would definitely be the preferred version.

Remotes and cables look OK.
But man, who designed this? Something tells me we'll never get a interview with the designer(s).

Yet another reason to stick with the downloading-and-UMDing (and cheaper) current model, if you ever needed one.

Their profit margins should be truly astronomical on downloads.

Absolutely huge savings in manufacture and distribution and no need to sell to shops lower to account for retailer mark-up.

Retailer notices lower prices online. Customers, too.

Retailer cannot compete selling UMDs.

Retailer goes out of business.

Sony's transition to downloads will happen small steps at a time. Until a high percentage choose downloads as their desired (preferred) way to get games, they won't be stiffing any retailers supporting them in neighbourhoods all around the world by cutting prices. Even when they do, there will be no reason to because they'll have the market by the balls. It's a no-win for the customer.

Given that they sell around the world, of course there's going to be some "higher than local store, but less than local store in Country X" talk going on. Sony sells around the fricken world, and it would be impossible to keep tabs on every market for absolute consistent pricing parity.

Welcome to the brave new download world. Where customers want convenience above all else - and at all costs. Literally.

Several of my posts have been DELETED in the comments, especially an early one simply stating the specs of the device. In other words, for NO GOOD REASON.

Also posts believing that there's a lot of astroturfing going on here. Poof! disappeared.

Very classy, Engadget.
Never before have I seen this happen.
We all know who is buttering your bread here, I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2K5LJHTouQ

Maybe. But it will probably also allow very high SPL without a care in the world for distortions, all the while faithfully recording the quietest sound. Then again maybe it's not that refined yet.

What I wonder about is:
* how will directional mics with off-axis rejection be made with this technology?
Lasers pointing at different bits then processed accordingly?

So many questions.

did you read the press release:
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"The color that certain microphones bring can be fantastic," he says. "The problem is, you can't have all of them, all of the time, meaning that all music recording is a compromise of some sort. With Laser-Accurate technology, all the tonal processing would take place after the sound is converted to a voltage, not during the act of recording it." A pristine signal offers a new world of possibilities, including the potential to create "plug-in"-type chip-based processors that mimic the characteristics of classic microphones and pre-amps, much as modeling guitar amplifiers routinely do now.
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So basically start with the best sound, then model it to your heart's content as desired. Makes sense to me.