The PSPgo’s launch is a mere two weeks away, but a brand new surprise has just been revealed. Sony’s latest attempt to gatecrash the handheld gaming market has a neat little feature called “save state,” which allows you to pause and exit a game wherever you are without having to scramble to a save point. By using “save state,” players can exit a game, do something else with the PSPgo, and then resume from wherever they were.
A number of DS games sport a similar feature, where a temporary cartridge file allows players to save their progress anywhere (although to prevent cheating that save is wiped when the game’s reloaded). However, unlike those games, it’s not yet known if the PSPgo’s “save state” file will be retained if the PSP is completely powered down.
I really hope that the new save feature works if the system’s switched off, since I think emergency saving is quite essential for any portable game. Handheld games that don’t allow you to at least temporarily save your progress quickly aren’t doing their job, as far as I’m concerned. When I’m playing a game on an airplane, I want to know I can resume my progress once the cabin crew forces me to turn my machine off like the Nazis they are.
Either way though, it’s a cool little addition that will make the PSPgo much more user-friendly. As one of the few people actually looking forward to the system’s launch, I can only approve.
