The PSPgo was a good idea wrapped in stupid ones. An all-digital handheld gaming platform geared specifically toward gamers should have been a good deal, but the usual Sony bullsh*t ruined the whole premise. The most ludicrous aspect of the PSPgo is how digital games cost as much as their retail counterparts, and developer Travelers Tales believes this issue could kill Sony's latest handheld.
“I own a PSPgo but don’t want to buy LittleBigPlanet, for instance, as I can get it 20% cheaper on UMD from Amazon and could resell it once I’m finished with it," says studio founder Jon Burton. "But if I download it, I get no discount, and no chance to resell -- how annoying is that? I’m betting on Sony making PSPgo games much cheaper than the UMD versions, or the PSPgo will die."
Burton's right -- what makes downloadable PSP games worth the money? You can get Persona PSP on Amazon for cheaper than the PSN version -- and that's for the special edition, that comes with stuff the digital version simply cannot offer. The PSPgo seems to have been a big waste of time for everyone, and I don't even think Sony cares if it lives or dies.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
6:40 PM on 12.03.2009
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I still don't get why PSPgo titles aren't cheaper. At least for the first few months. You can turn on everybody and go around Sonying all your good ideas afterwards. At least pretend you're trying.
But it actually doesn't matter to Sony. They are not releasing the PSPGo to compete with the DSi or the PSP300. They are releasing it to compete with the iTouch... Then, of course, its way out of its league on everything but games' quality.
Is it just me, or is this the Sony story this generation??
That's kind of been everybodies story. MS fucked up 360 manufacuring and just now admitted it and is trying to decrease the number of problems.
If I were running Sony I would have offered the PSPgo hardware to retailers as dirt cheap as possible while keeping the MSRP around the $250 mark, allowing them to make a pretty penny off those sales and negating a lot of the loss they would see in software sales. I'd also have pushed the pre-paid game vouchers and PSN cards hard at retail to keep them interested, but the margins there are pretty slim by all accounts so I'm not sure how much that would actually do.
Now whether the Sony brass has foregone that route because they're stupid, overly risk adverse, or because they ran the numbers and they didn't look good, none of us can know.
Likely the PSPgo will be that device, as there usually is with a new technology paradigm, that did all the right things but only through its failure establishes the market in which future devices will succeed. If Sony have any clue they're already well underway developing that device and its marketing campaign before someone beats them to it, but they'll probably bungle that one, too.
I miss good old metroid and pokemon when it was simpler
The key for me is that Steam offers benefits boxed games do not, from Steam achievements to an account-based ownership which allows me to take my games to any PC. These kinds of benefits make the equal price despite lack of packaging easier to swallow.
To be 100% honest with you I didn't know that. Unless I've been missing something I've been asking that question since the Go launched and never got a straighforward answer. So thanks...I guess...unless that last line was sarcasm.
Maybe I'm retarded but everytime I asked why the Go software was the price it was I got fanboy bitching and sarcastic answers.
i bought a GO at launch, mostly because of the size and bluetooth (not to mention 16gb internal storage), i have bluetooth headphones, couldnt resist it, i had a phat (that was too big for carrying it around, but the go is slightly bigger than my cellphone) and really like the idea of hooking my psp to the tv since i re-encode movies or download pre-encoded videos...
besides in my country a 3000 was 280USD and a GO 380 USD, but i have a credit card so in 20 months the difference didnt bother me...
so... about the games? here a new psp game (UMD) costs around 60 - 80 USD, using entropay i can get the same game for 30 - 40 USD, needless to say, almost nobody buys UMD, the retailers sell the PSPs with CFW preloaded... but for me it's a saving, i can support the developers without these idiots profiting unfairly, and... i'm really surprised no one mentions it, but i'm pretty sure i can install... say LBP on five PSPs... FF7 on five PSPs and five PS3s... surely someone can make a saving... all my friends have modded PSPs but if you have some friends legal... do the math
but i wanted to get into "legal" gaming, be able to buy PSOne classics (suikoden, ff7 and mgs were the first things installed on my go).
im not saying piracy is good, im saying it does bring in substantial numbers in the sale of consoles/handhelds..
heck PS3 is doing well for a system that is NOT EVEN HACKED YET...
The problem is that every Thursday I log on to the Playstation Store to see what potential treasures await and more often than not, they're just not there. Sony is not making the moves they need to be making to really push the potential of digital distribution.
Jack Tretton said its not SCEA's fault games aren't popping up on PSN like they should. Wwll, Jack, get your thumb out of your ass and start talking to the people we want to see put up the games.
Because if they plan to digitally distribute PS2 games next - rather than give the backward compatibility that's been frequently demanded by consumers - its going to be the same shit we're seeing with PSOne and PSP games right now.
The price points bother me a little, but that's secondary to a lack of content. As the old lady said back in the 80's "Where's the beef?"
Thanks, that was exactly the kind of response I was looking for.
Simple, cause that's what everyone else does with Digital downloads for PC. I mean put aside when a game is on sale, a steam sells their games for the same exact price as they are for retail... but no one really complains about not having a physical copy, not being able to sell it, or poiting out that they can buy it cheaper on amazon. And steam is largely successful. Why should sony think that what works so very well for PC's, would fail with the PSP?
Aren't you all cute.
Unless you're living under a rock Jim their are a plethora of successful devices like this out there, in fact I'd say it's a big part of the electronics industry. It's like sex appeal, common sense need not apply.
However I would never buy a PSPgo based on that I can't get all the games I want on it. Over here in New Zealand where yes the PSPgo is sold at most electronics stores Sony have done a pretty bad job of getting the library of PSP games available on PSN. So yeah, I think it's a fail, but for other reasons than finance. In fact if the entire back catalogue of PSP games was now on PSN I would have bought one by now. This is obviously far too much to ask though. Too me it seems like common sense, but as I stated before common sense isn't something that applies to the PSPgo.
My main problem with the digital distribution, though, is space. Sony's Micro cards are way overpriced and I had enough stuff to fill up a 16 GB PSPGo before I even owned one, let alone the size of your standard movie (2 gigs; see funny/sad aside below on movie file sizes). Along with the fact that if you own a PSPGo and PSP, you have to buy accessories specific to the PSPGo rather than being able to just go with your PSP accessories.
*funny/sad movie file size story: PSP AC Bloodlines bundle came with Angels & Demons movie download and a 2GB Micro card. Size of the movie was greater than 2GB, though, so I still can't download and play it on my PSP. Looks good on my TV that's hooked up to one of my PS3s, though.
If I shop around I can even fit in an expended capacity battery as well.
So better battery life (out of the box, even MORE with a better battery), the ability to change batteries when it starts to lose charge (inevitable), ability to play UMDs AND 16gb of downloadable games.
A few ounces CANNOT account for the myriad advantages of the 3000 over the Go.
I can resell the games I buy, from what I understand, the games allow for three installs after purchase, install your game, sell it to two people at a discount and make a profit, just borrow their Go for a night and install it, been working for me. (well, I'm not charging them, but I basicalt gave MHFU to two friends so we can hunt together)
As for having to pay full price for a game... if I can fit it into my budget, great, if not, I won't complain. Games are just a hobby, I'm not going to whine that my choice of extracurricular activity is too expensive. I used to play WarHammer 40k but then getting the models and paint became too expensive so I stopped. Simple as that.
Maybe the Go will stop being produced because of the whole pricing thing and people not wanting to part with their dollars on something they don't actually need to get, but I doubt it will die off completely because I know I'm not the only person who loves the PSP Go.
Well... I at least hope they won't cancel support for the unit, I like having digital copies of my games.
Hahahahahaha you just reminded me of how awesome The Videogame Show What I've Done is, especially that particular episode.
@ Jim:
Moar TVSWID plz
I mean allow me to register the UMD I own via a serial number, or an application I can use on my existing PSP. And then charge me 2-3 dollars to download a digital version. The implementation wouldn't be mind blowingly difficult to make happen.
Shit Sony is stupid.
I still traded it in though for a 3000. Games on PSN are expensive but worse still (for me anyway) you can't even access all of the PSP's games library. This is (imo) the Go's biggest failure regardless of who is at fault.
One example - no Ridge Racer 1 or 2 but you can download the demo...
I am now hooked and would pay more for the convenience of digital distribution.
Now if only Sony could do week-end sales too..
Still, he's right. Drop the prices and I'd download a lot more games. Drop them by even ten dollars what they have them as, I'd buy.
No what i think is the main thing that's hurting the PSPgo is the ridiculous price. Seriously, NO ONE wants to pay that much money for a handheld game console; push that shit down to a similar price as the psp3000 and you will see units move... hell, if they made it even a little cheaper then that psp3000, people would forget all their complaints about the price of games.
The second and probably the last thing really holding the PSPgo back i would imagine be memory space... i don't know how big the games are, but god knows that i demand 30gb for my mp3 player because i got too much music to put onto anything smaller... memory might fill up too fast and 1st party memory cards have always been too costly (noticiable when you can find a usb flash drive for the same price but at double the size)......
both of these are things that steam DOESN'T have to deal with... steam is free for download and works on a PC that you most likely already own, and you probably have enough hardrive space to fit in a very good number of games as the standards for hardrives has only increased over the years
*shrugs*
o well. More spare parts for other stuff...
And possibly target practice.
<Takes PSPgo to gun range>
<places it in launcher and yells, "pull!">
<BLASTS that mutha- out of the sky>
I hope SONY felt that (The Force at work).
Maybe I just have bad luck, or maybe I'm a bit klutzy, but I'm on my 3rd psp since 2006. (They're pretty fragile though, only portable I've ever damaged, except for one GBA that my dogs ate)
While you can deactivate a PSP and free up one of your downloads, you can only do it if it's in working order and you can hook it up. If you can't, you're SOL.