Oliver's Blogs

The PSP Go is official and has drawn mixed opinions from gamers and critics alike. I am going to outline the reasons why I see it as a failure before it even reaches the masses. I know this isn't the first blog about the PSP Go on here, but hopefully I'll be bringing up some new points worth noting in your gaming shopping lists next to a crossed out 'PSP Go'.

At first I thought the design of the 'Go' was terrible. This was probably due to the fact that the first pictures I saw of it was blurry leaked images. However, the more I saw of the thing, the more I began to like the design, but that's about as deep as my respect for it goes. The PSP Go is like the hot blonde who you later find out is an a***ole.

^{Blonde b*tch}

The first let down is going to be the price. If you look at the US price of a Nintendo DSi, and then compare it to the New Zealand price, you would be shocked. At US$170, the DSi should retail at about NZ$270 at current exchange rates. The actual price of the DSi in New Zealand is $400. The PSP Go is set to come out at US$250 in the States so just on exchange rates, that's already $400. Sony aren't likely to be different to Nintendo, so expect the PSP Go's New Zealand price to be over $500, a $200 mark up on the PSP 3000. That's the first huge drawback... It's going to hit your wallet about as hard as the original PSP did back at release, and with what technology?

...Well, less actually. Over the 3000, basically they've stripped out the UMD drive and added in some internal memory. Some experts are saying that the PSP Go costs less for Sony to manufacture than the 3000 did. So what are we paying for? Having the latest model and that's about it. Sony are extortionists, but I think we all knew that already.

The lack of UMD drive kills the second hand PSP game market completely. With the PSP Go there is now no way to sell your games onto someone else (or EB games) when you're done. Effectively this is a stupid move by Sony, because it cuts their profits too. If people can't trade their old games, then because of the lack of money from trades, they will buy less new games and Sony will recieve less income. Sony possibly don't realise that second hand games actually do help drive their business.

Also, if you buy a game and download it only to find that it's pretty awful, then you can't return it either. You just got duped. You can delete it by all means, but Sony isn't going to give your money back. That means that extensive research will need to go into game purchases beforehand to avoid making mistakes. This will probably end up being too much effort for many people, and as so often happened for the PSP 1000, 2000 and 3000, the handheld will probably end up in the cupboard.

Sure, Sony has announced that they are looking to offer some kind of UMD swap program, where you give them your UMD and they give you a digital copy of the game. But at what cost? Do people really want to pay even more for a game they already purchased? Will Sony even have a digital copy of the games we want in digital? The only way I see that working is if they do it free (potentially costing Sony a lot of money and time), and if they have every single game ever released on UMD. And every movie, I'm sure some people still have those somewhere.

^{"Oh my god! You killed UMD! You bastards!"}

This brings me to the drawbacks for retail outlets. With the PSP Go's online store, there will no longer ever be a need to go to your local games store and buy a game. Everything will be done over your home WiFi connection, assuming you have one. This means that places like EB Games are likely to make very little profit from the PSP Go, if they even sell them (I wouldn't if I were them). This kind of ruins current PSP owners' sh*t. Places are likely to cut their PSP UMD game stock to next to nothing, or discontinue PSP support completely. Good move Sony you wankers.

So assuming you have a PSP Go and you've got a bunch of games you play and have purchased online. Then all of a sudden it's gone. Somebody could have stolen it, your memory card may have been corrupted, you lost it, you deleted a game to make room for another... all these things are easy to do. Well its easy to just go download it again for free right? Oh sh*t, you forgot your username and password. Bye bye games, buy them again. Sure it's pretty easy to lose your UMDs too if you're careless, but having a physical copy means that you never need to download them again, and there's no risk of forgetting your details. Also, physical copies come wih some pretty sweet cover art, and your friends can borrow them!

I have a game on UMD called OutRun 2006 Coast to Coast. I'm kind of proud I have this game cause it was one of about 10 copies of the game ever sold in Christchurch. It is by all means not a popular game, but it's a good one that I go back to from time to time. Is Sony going to have this semi-obscure title in its line-up for the PSP Go? I very much doubt it. And if anyone wants to play an older PSP game that saw a UMD release but wasn't that big, well it's quite likely they can't on the PSP Go. If you had a PSP with a UMD drive, you'd be playing that game right now son, but you opted for the more expensive one. The better one right? Right?

^{Wrong. Original PSPs taste way better.}

What I fail to understand is why you would buy a PSP Go for it's downloadable game abilities when as far as I can tell, the online store is available on a UMD PSP too. If you went out and bought a bigger memory stick, then (assuming you want them) you could have all the downloadable games you want AND you could play your UMD titles.

With your UMDs you could throw them in your bag and have as many as you want with you. With the PSP Go, that 16GB memory isn't going to hold all the games in the world. You're going to have an extra cost every few games you buy (assuming you don't want to delete), and that's going to be memory sticks. For reference, a 16GB memory stick at Sony's current prices is $250.

What other drawbacks does the latest and greatest from Sony have? Well, apparently the battery life is slightly worse than previous models. Apparently it's not so comfortable to hold, though I'm sure you could get used to it. And, oh yeah... Sliders break. Anyone that has had a few slider mobile phones can attest to this. Sliders weaken over time and if they don't break they wobble like sh*t. I can imagine Sony is going to have quite a few returns on this baby.

^{Try holding your thumbs like that and telling me it's comfortable!}

You know, I thought Sony were in debt. And if I'm wrong about that, then I know for sure that they've recorded losses for the last few quarters/years. Why the hell are they spending money on useless updates? The amount of money poured into this new PSP must be huge, and even their UMD swap program is going to cost them mega $$$$$. With all these drawbacks I've listed here, I can't see this thing selling in large amounts. I can't see Sony's gaming division recording any profits for at least the next year or two.

It's a shame cause there's some nice games coming out on PSP soon.