JUNE 12, 2008 • Premium PSP titles republished via the online PlayStation Store are seeing anywhere from a $1 to $11 increase in price. Games seeing the increase included: Ape Escape, Gangs of London, Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, Kingdom of Paradise, LocoRoco, SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo, Twisted Metal: Head-On, and WipeOut Pure.
Impact: Digital distribution may be a convenience feature to satisfy immediate demand, but it currently does not offer a great savings over traditional retail when it comes to price. Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee costs $16 as a PlayStation Store download and $20 to buy a physical copy from Amazon.com. However, the digital copy requires a Memory Stick Duo and takes up 441 MB. Considering that a Memory Stick ranges from $15 to over $30 per GB. For some titles like SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 2 and The Con, it was cheaper to buy the physical copy at Amazon.com than it was to buy the title online from PlayStation Store.