Technology enthusiasts and early-adopters know this already: you almost always pay a premium to get something when it is first released. This is done because there is demand for the device that allows manufacturers and retailers to offer them at full price, perhaps a bit above intended longer-term price to help recoup R&D efforts. As I said, we all know this, but manufacturers seldom admit to anything beyond a carefully calculated value proposition. Until now, when Sony talks about why the PSP Go is priced so shockingly high …

Joystiq’s Andrew Yoon (originally the head dood at PSP Fanboy) notes a fun fact in the article: you can buy a PSP-3000 PLUS a 16GB Memory Stick Pro Duo for *less* than the $249 that Sony will be charging for the new product.

Last month, industry analyst Michael Pachter said

$249 is too much. Period… The [current] $169 PSP-3000 is a profitable device – the disc assembly, for a UMD, costs more than 16 gigs of flash does. So this new device doesn’t cost them as much to make as the PSP-3000 and they jack the price up $80…

So how do they justify the price? Fortunately SCEE exec Andrew House said:

When you introduce a new piece of hardware you have the opportunity to say there is a certain premium that is associated with it, and we took that into account.

He was even asked if R&D costs moving to the sliding design or retailer markups were the reason and said “Those aren’t the factors”.

So there you have it … Sony is saying that they are charging $250 because they know there are suckers out there who will stand in line Day One to buy it for that price (I wish my righteous indignation would allow me to say I wasn’t one of them!). For those who thought that being in dead last place in all categories this console generation would have forced some humility on Sony … have THEY got a device for YOU!

Source & Image: Joystiq