I think the PSP only has 802.11b not g. No mention of the downside of digital content? Being locked into the Sony Store, games more expensive than their UMD counterparts, swapping/can't buy second hand copies etc. Call me a Luddite, but digital games have far too many compromises to be a realistic option at this point.
Thanks for the review, but this PSPgo is definitely a very bad move and I would never buy it, not because of the smaller screen, but simply because there's no way to buy/sell used games - as they are dematerialised. It's a good move for Sony's bottom-line, but not for consumers.
Excellent review, in fact the best I've read to date, with every nail hammered squarely on the head. It really is hard to get a grip on Sony's thinking here. Playing the Conspiracy Theory card, maybe the PSPgo has been so priced as to drive PS3 sales instead! Sooner or later, of course, the PSP3000 will be dropped and UMD games unavailable. One of my local branches of Saturn (a very large shop here in Berlin) has very few UMD games on display. Fine! The secondhand market will boom. Sony's dumping of previously loyal customers, by not offering an exchange path, is a leaf straight from Microsoft. If you gave me a PSPgo I would become your friend, but I am a long way from handing over any of my own money for one. I love my Nintendo DS and am keener than ever now on an iPod Touch. Not what Sony intended, I think.
I'm intrigued by your closing statement "am keener than ever now on an iPod Touch" given the rest of your argument about 2nd hand games market. If you don't like the concept of 'downloadable games', what does the iPod Touch do for you that the PSPGo doesn't?
The article mentioned that PSPGo mini's will be filling the same market the iPod/iPhone games occupy. But the PSPGo also will have its typical 'big title' games that you can choose to buy if you feel that way inclined.
PSPGo has plenty of issues, but I think it is just too early and too poorly equipped. I mean it only has 802.11b, no 3G access and no touch screen even for media functions or the (very awful) browser. The pricing is horrendous and frankly an insult to people's intelligence.
But you can see why Sony did it, with an estimated profit of 9000JPY per device sold even shipping a lowly 2m of these offsets sales of 6-7m of the loss making PS3s.
Nice review that covers the good and bad points of the device. The only thing I disagree with is the 'sky-high price tag'. £199 for a 16GB (expandable) dedicated games machine that also doubles up as a perfectly functional PMP seems like very good value to me. It is priced competitively against a non-expandable 16GB ipod touch, which although they are aimed at different markets, there is some overlap. The S9 16GB PMP is the same price as the PSPGo. The S9 has better codec support slightly better sound and longer battery life. The PSPGo plays games and has external speakers.
I’d like to have seen a little more codec support as switching between various formats can be a pain. MediaGo does on the fly conversion, but naturally this is slower than just copying the file over. Another negative is the web browsing. Whilst it works fine, I personally don’t find it a particularly enjoyable experience due to the screen size and cursor.
On the whole I think that it is a great piece of hardware and easily worthy of a 9. It has enough to differentiate it from the other gaming systems.
Ultimately it’ll only be as good as the availability (and pricing) of games, and content delivery. If Sony does follow through with their promise to retailers to sell games using redeemable codes, we should hopefully see some price competition.
I'm not against the concept of downloadable games in the least. I am against Sony's concept of charging too highly for them and leaving present PSP owners, of which I am one, in the lurch. I am sure the PSPgo's day could come but Sony has started off on a bad footing and has to do to persuade me to hand over my money for one. The iPod Touch offers me, as I see it, a cheaper and better portable solution for gaming, emailing, surfing etc.
For existing PSP owners I see zero real benefit (certianly none worth the cost) in the Go.
Against the DS and iPhone/Touch/Phones, it does have better games, but less of them and they are more expensive, and often more 'serious'. It was the best thing about the psp is it wasn't silly kids games, it was games for adults, it was a portable console.
However I think that market is shrinking quickly, and unless Microsoft enter it with a portable xbox equiv, I think it will disappear. The mobile phone games will get better as more phones get better procesors, and that will satisfy our 'adult' portable gaming need.
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