EB Australia to Boycott PSPGo?

Let the boycott parade continue. A rumour has surfaced indicating that EB games in Australia is now jumping on the PSPGo boycott bandwagon. If you go to their site, there is no mention of the PSPGo even though it’s being released in a week. Calling their stores and asking about the PSPGo won’t get you very far either as the handheld isn’t even in their system.

Although EB games did not formulate any official response to any of these inquires, it is being presumed that high profit margins on hardware sales plus the added loss of any UMD revenue is ending the PSPGo’s run before it even leaves the gate. The questions retailers are asking are - why would we pay almost retail prices for a piece of hardware that won’t generate any re-occurring revenue? The PSP-3000 is $50 less and will bring customer back to our store to purchase games.

Perhaps this is Sony’s F.U. to retail stores that sell second hand copies of games, something Sony considers as a sales loss to them that they have been incurring for years.

Kotaku spoke with a representative from Sony and received the following statement from an SCE Australia spokesperson:

In relation to our business and the launch of PSPgo, we are already experiencing solid support for launch day on October 1 in Australia. Retail support of the PSP platform, includes both PSP-3000 and PSPgo. Many retailers will choose to range both PSP models side-by-side, as we continue to offer expanded choice for the consumer for the handheld device platform. As with any new product, there will be continued discussions with retail partners to continue to expand reach over time in line with growth of the entire PSP platform.
SCE are also committed to delivering more PSP content including strong IPs like Gran Turismo and LittleBigPlanet this year, plus increased networked services and applications for the platform such as the Digital Reader service which will launch with Digital Comics this December. In 2010 users will also be able to enjoy access to a Video Delivery Service.