The PSPGO (Away)

[Doctor Oak]

So, how hard is the PSPGo going to fail when it launches in a week? Very, very, extremely hard.

This comes days after offering 'incentives' for European PSP owners to upgrade - 'upgrade' - to an overpriced system that can do less, can't play any of the games they already own and relies solely on the PSN Store for a supply of games. A PSN store that, in Europe, doesn't get half the games the rest of the world does, gets them typically much later AND is on a service that's pants and generally has bugger all on it anyway.

(Edit: AND I should point out that while the PSN store SAYS it accepts debit cards, they don't work! STILL. After the issue has been brought up to SCEE a dozen times on their own forums. So, even if there WAS anything on the PSN, you still can't get it without a credit card. Screwing over a large amount of their UK audience.)

Anyone still contemplating buying a PSPGo?

Thought not.

 

[Linkachu]

I think this random commenter on Kotaku says all.

You have to love the poor old PAL region.

Upgrade from PS2 to PS3 - None of your old games work, but you can buy PSX games!

Upgrade from PSP to PSPGo for the price of a PS3 - None of your old games work! Here, have 3 of ours. You never liked playing third party games anyway.

Now I'm much more satisfied with my recent purchase of a 4 gig PSP memory stick. I get to download the few interesting titles the PSN has to offer (which probably couldn't even fill the 4 gigs at the moment...) AND play all of my currently owned titles with ease

 

[Moose]

Eh... I still have my PSP Slim and don't need any other Sony PSP systems, especially not ones that lack a drive to play UMDs.

 

[Toastie]

?!?!
Why on earth...
Fair enough if it's a brand new, revolutionary console, but this is like a downgrade!
Who in their right mind would waste money on something so awful?

 

[Nemesis]

Unfortunately,in regards to the inability to play games unless they are downloaded, it is a step towards the future of games retail....

You see, publishers/developers lose so much money thanks to the pre-owned games market, as they only see cash from the original sale of a game. Once you trade it in, and it's resold all profit goes to the shop in question. Baring in mind that the average amount of owners for a game (on a disk) at the moment is 4, imagine the hit in revenue for the various publishers/developers involved.

So if there were a way to ensure that revenue is not lost by making games only available online, who can blame Sony for trying it? Sure, the fact that the "test case" for this system is a remodel of the PSP wasn't the best idea, but buisness wise, having no reliance on physical media, and therefore no reliance on retailers, makes sense.

In all fairness, I see this as a way of testing the water for the future of games retail. Sony want to see how well new PSP customers take to only downloading their games. Because, as far as I can see, this is who the GO is aimed at, new customers. Not even Sony are stupid enough to think existing customers will buy a new machine that can't play games they already own.

Let's face it, Microsoft are also dipping their toe in, by offering classic games for download on LIVE. (Unfortunately they have priced themselves out, as preowned copies are cheaper...) It was inevitable that companies would start trying this, and I wouldn't be surprised if it continues.

 

[Linkachu]

Not even Sony are stupid enough to think existing customers will buy a new machine that can't play games they already own.

Actually, they are. They did, after all, target European gamers suggesting they "upgrade" from their PSP slims to PSPGo. I think that's what flooring so many people about the lack of UMD transferring really. It was one of their promises for people who upgraded. Now there's really no point for current owners to do so.

 

[Doctor Oak]

Digital Distribution can be great if done right - but the PSPGo isn't doing it right. The software should be cheaper, not only because of costs saved by lack of physical goods and travel - but purely because the consumer considers it a less "full" product because it lacks a physical form. (Not to mention being competitively cheap against pre-owned physical copies).

With Sony enforcing a £20+ RRP on new titles going onto the PSN, they're pricing themselves out of what most consumers would deem an acceptable charge in comparison to what they could physically purchase.

Another issue with how Sony's doing this DD deal on the Go is the software available in the first place. If you look on the PSN right now - days before the system's release - there's only a smattering of full PSP games available on it, and a large majority of those aren't worth playing, let alone paying full price for. It's a fraction of what's actually available for the PSP, and a lot of PSP games are never going to be on this service because Sony can't or wont retroactively publish them this way.

With only a vague "we'd like to..." by means of a 'promise' that all new PSP games will have a DD form on the PSN when the Go launches, it's really not enough. It's absurd to pay over the odds for a system that has no guarantee of actually playing the games that are in development for the platform as a whole.

Another issue Sony have backed themselves into a corner about is the restriction on PSN updates. With the PSN only updating on Thursday nights, this means that should a PSP game be released on a Friday (As most UK games are), to play that game on your Go, should it ever make it to the PSN itself, you've got to wait almost a week to be able to get it - for the exact same platform! And that's willing against hope that SCEE doesn't stay true to PSN form and keep European updates as sparse and late as they have until this point. It could get to the stage where a PSP game could be out for months before it makes it to the PSN for anyone with a Go to be able to buy it.

Digital Distribution is a very, very wary point of contention for many consumers right now. While XBLA, and to a lesser extent, the Wii and DSi stores, are proving successful with fairly cheap brand new games or old ports - people are much more wary about full price releases in digital form - not least because of the pre-owned market making their physical forms (which many users hold to be superior purely because of peace of mind) a damned side cheaper for the consumer to get a hold of than the DD price. It's a minefield that needs to be approached correctly in order to succeed at this very early stage in what is inevitably the future of game distribution.

Sony have blindly stumbled into that minefield wearing a t-shirt, shorts, sandals and a sack of rakes tied to their back. They've tackled the entire thing in a "If we make it, they will come" mindset and totally ignored the consumers themselves - again. It's doing neither their customers nor themselves any good, and it's unfathomable why they continue to do their business like this.

 

[Absolutezero]

Agreed on all points Dr.Oak!

and to add, yes, the PSPGO is selling, why? because its fashionable. for a long time the division between the handhelds has been clear, the DS has been the GOOD one and the PSP has been the POPULAR one.

i've owned a PSP since the PSP-1000 release and a DS (original) since about a year after those came out. for a long time i played my PSP. until good games stopped coming out for it. now it gets roughly 1/10th of the playtime my DSi gets. about the only game i play on PSP at all now is Dissidia and Star Ocean 2.

they built the PSPGO on the same principle they built the PS3, a wide variety of new features and a slick design, but no games and no real point to own it than it being a showpiece that you have more money than you know what to do with.

needless to say i'm not buying one, my PSP-1001 (my old 1000 died) works just fine.

 

[Abnaki_Knight]

Man with all that Oak said I agree, anyway the only thing I buy for Sony is the kick *** games like Final Fantasy XIII that coming. ;D