Rip-Off Britain Claims PSP Victims

If you're a UK gamer thinking about the PSP Giga Pack, don't expect the dream deal that America gets.

Still haven't picked up a PSP yet? Maybe you're thinking of adding it to your shopping list for Santa? If so, then chances are that you've considered the new Giga Pack option - but according to some customers and retailers, it might not be quite the dream purchase it could be.

Announced last month, the Sony Giga Pack is a special bundle in an attractive blue packaging design that comes with some great accessories, including a Vertical Stand for the main unit - useful for watching UMD movies - and vitally, a 1GB Memory Stick, offering much, much higher capacity for data, photo, music and video storage than afforded by the regular Value Pack's 32MB.

But some customers who've bought the recently released Giga Pack have come away disappointed at being forced to buy games they didn't want, simply because they have to come bundled with the Giga Pack.

Retailers selling the PSP claim they have no choice in the matter - that Sony's only making PSP Giga Packs available for sale to retailers who agree to sell customers the bundled option. For gamers, it means they might miss out on the games they really wanted to play on their PSPs this Christmas.

As one London-based game store explained to Kikizo: "We have to get the PSP Giga Packs in, and then bundle each one with World Tour Soccer and Pursuit Force. People are buying the bundle because it's the only option they have, and there aren't many regular packs around - but they're not happy about the games that come with it."

Often the situation has leads to pretty predictable, but drastic measures: "What we've seen is people trading them straight back in as soon as they buy it, and getting something popular like Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories in exchange."

In America, gamers are able to buy the Giga Pack with no bundled games and freely choose what they want to play, with the pack costing a mere $299USD. Helped along by the exchange rate at the moment, that's just £173. The cheapest game-bundled Giga Pack option in the UK is around £269 - just for the comparison, that's a whopping $462USD - enough to afford an Xbox 360 Premium System and a game with spare change, for American gamers.

Meanwhile, Japanese gamers are enjoying the slick new white edition PSPs - also available from friendly importers - featuring slightly improved manufacturing quality over the old black model.

Sony Europe is trying its best to make sure you don't buy an imported white PSP though, pavlovially fearing it could damage sales of the machine in its own territory. It even went as far as forcing UK gadget magazine, Stuff, which had previously featured the white PSP on its front cover, to post an apology on its website saying "we now recommend you don't buy one" without much explanation.

Rip off Britain? Gamers will have to decide with their wallets - and their Christmas lists - in the busy shopping period.

Adam Doree
Kikizo.com