The US economy has been on shaky ground lately, but Sony Corporation assures that the company's electronics line is unaffected. Chief Executive Howard Stringer cites Black Friday sales as a good indication of this, saying that PS3 and PSP sales were "very good." He's also optimistic for the arrival of PlayStation Home, which he sees as a key factor in the company's growth. Read more in the full article.

Sony Computer Entertainment America sent in a rather short press release today detailing the performance of the three current PlayStation consoles for this week with focus given on Black Friday sales.

In general, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation 2 did all excellent jobs in the sales department the past couple of weeks. Click the "read more" link below to see the actual numbers.

(Editor's Note: "Gobble gobble!" We sure have a lot to be thankful for. And after last week's QuickPeek edition, we want to give all of you one big serving of the freshest, meatiest, and most importantly, juiciest QuickPeek turkey ever!)

For this week's Quickpeek, as some of you might know, it's "Battle of the Exclusives" week, but is that all? Heck no. Read the full article!

GameStop has just released a series of promos for this Black Friday. The promo includes several deals you'll want to look over, such as an offer for the Crimson-and-Black DS Lite. More details on GameStop's adverts are available in the full article.

Still don't know what to get on Black Friday? Amazon offers a lot of gaming goodies on ridiculous discounts, and what's more, they've got an ample supply of the Wii as well. Read on to get more details and pricing information for Amazon's Black Friday deals.

"I think this is going to be the year for PSP, I think it's going to be a fantastic year for it. A very, very good year." That's how confident John Koller is on the fate of Sony's handheld for 2007.

And he actually has a well-founded reason for suddenly gushing like a schoolgirl. The recent implementation of the PSP price drop to US$ 169 apparently gave a whole lot of loving to Sony as PSP sales shot up to 300 percent - in just two days, at that. And all that love they'll be taking to the bank with them. Not only that, but the once-comatosed UMD scene suddenly gets a second chance at life as UMD sales also got a nice revival.

Also being held responsible for this rejuvenation of PSP sales is the new marketing scheme taken by Sony through its "Dude, Get Your Own" campaign. According to Koller, since the launch of the new campaign, they immediately saw an increase in sales. But admittedly, they also took a close, hard look at Wal-Mart experience during the last Black Friday.

But apart from all that, "Our greatest successes take place when publishers and developers recognize the value of the PSP owner as a PSP owner not repurposing a title," further explains Koller. "We've actively encouraged third parties in that direction."

To maintain the momentum of the PSP, Koller reveals that they will be having some major announcements coming this year. We expect to hear about them in the coming months, and you can bet we'l' be there to give you the heads up.

 

As confirmation to the EBGames and GameStop price drop sightings, the official word from Sony claims that the price tag has dropped by US$ 30 all over North America, making the U.S.-only word CVG got from Sony extends its horizons over Canada. So if you check a couple of Canuck EBGames retail stores there, you'd find that the PlayStation Portable CORE package is also now available at a modest US$ 169 tag.

Lazard Capital Markets noted that in Black Friday just last year, a Wal-Mart discount promotion sporting the same price of US$ 169 was able to reel in greater sales. They claim that this proves the demand for the handheld actually exists, although it is price-sensitive.

Sony, however, is not only hoping that the PSP would garner a modest gain in sales for after the price drop. They are also hoping that the line up of popular franchise titles, such as Ratchet & Clank, Syphon Filter and God of War, will also help the PSP sell like hotcakes. Gran Turismo for the PSP, coming in the second half of 2007, is also expected to boost unit sales in the near future.

Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets hopes to breathe new life into the PSP marketing campaign. They are planning an online and print campaign for young adults and teens, besides gamers-on-the-go. "In terms of software, we believe hardware price cuts can positively affect game sales with an expanding installed base as well as additional foot traffic in retail stores," said Sebastian, concluding:

It is too early to conclude whether Sony's pricing action will cause game developers to increase the pipeline of new PSP titles; however, several publishers publicly called on Sony to lower the PSP price and broaden the consumer end market. At the new $169 price, we note that the PSP is still $40 higher than Nintendo's DS.

Dave Karraker, SCEA's Sr. Director, has recently said that during the week ending November 26 sales for the PS3 and the PSP were up by 116.5% and 167.9% respectively. Apparently the two got a big boost from "Black Friday" and the Thanksgiving weekend.

As for the PS3, no official numbers are out yet, but Karraker says that all the PS3 units that were shipped to the U.S. last week did sell out and he assures that more are already on the way. Here's the official SCEA statement:

Sony Computer Entertainment America has been airlifting additional shipments of PlayStation 3 systems into the North American market since the launch on November 17. We were able to get a fresh supply of PS3s in the hands of retailers prior to Black Friday, along with games and peripherals. Feedback from our retail partners is that demand is still incredibly high and that PS3s put on store shelves were quickly snapped up by holiday shoppers. We will continue to utilize airfreight delivery for the PlayStation 3 to assure a steady stream of systems for North American consumers through the end of the year. Our goal remains to have one million units in the pipeline by December 31, 2006.

Maybe it wasn't a Black Friday for the Wii or the PS3 after all - it was a Black Friday for the PSP.

This Black Friday, you can get a whole lot of good PSP deals. How cheap exactly? Okay, at Circuit City, they're selling GTA: VCS for thirty bucks, you get a free Pelican kit with a purchase of a PSP, and ATV Offroad, Ape Escape, Infected, and Hot Shots Golf are all ten dollars each. What else? Oh, yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is only US$ 17, so get happy with Captain Jack or something.

At Wal-mart GTA: LCS sells for only US$ 15, and a PSP will go for only US$ 170. At Meijer, a PSP will go for even lower at US$ 150!

Target only gives you a US$ 25 gift card for a PSP purchase, but hey, that's still 25 bucks worth of things to give to relatives on X-mas.