PSP will cost $500?

News - Surely not...

Well, the weakness of the dollar may be presenting Sony with all kinds of export headaches, especially with the upcoming PSP handheld debut in mind, however we severely doubt the price point of $500 mooted by Atari's CEO will come into fruition, especially as the Nintendo DS is rumoured to be entering at around the $199 mark. Not that $500 is so high here; the dollar being so weak that such a price equates to little more than £280, as we speak.

Undoubtedly, such a pricing would prove a little too steep for American consumers, and with some aggressive competition with Nintendo on the horizon, Sony will we want to be competing hard from the outset, especially as they hope to make profit from software sales, rather than on the hardware itself. Atari chief Bruno Bonnell fanned the pricing conjecture at a recent conference, stating: "We saw pictures and a nice prototype at E3, but I want to see more. It's nice, like a nice car. But we have no idea if the PSP's pricing is going to be $250, $350 or $500... $500 to start would be my guess."

Of course, Bonnell probably knows little more than the rest of us, and though a UK price of around £250-300 wouldn't be unsurprising, it seems unlikely Sony will risk anything more than that figure in dollars stateside.