Topic: PSP Go leaked

[idolminds]

Silly Sony, they blew their E3 announcement.

No UMD drive, 16GB internal storage, Bluetooth (for what I have no idea), smaller (in general, and the screen is smaller). The screen actually slides up to reveal the controls. I don't get why, of the things to protect on a PSP the controls were not a high priority.

I guess the video talks about a new Metal Gear game as well as Gran Turismo PSP, both of which will probably be shown at E3. Exciting! And with no UMD drive I'm going to guess that all future PSP games will be sold via PSN. They will keep the PSP-3000 model around and still sell UMD games, though. Hopefully they don't do any of that Patapon 2 "coupon in a case" bullshit.

[Xessive]

I'm not excited about it at all. I like that it has Bluetooth, which could be handy for file transfers with other devices like phones. Other than that I think it's ugly. The lack of a UMD drive would make all my current games useless. Why would a current PSP owner even consider switching for it?

I like my current PSP-3000, though I do wish I could homebrew it up.

[idolminds]

Yeah, this is totally aimed at people that don't already own a PSP. I can't think of a single reason to "upgrade" from the older models.

[W7RE]

I like it, and if I find myself with the spare cash, I may get one.

I think of the lack of UMD port like the DSi's removal of the GBA port. It's an older format they're going to move away from. The problem is, the UMD is nowhere near as old as the GBA cartridges, so you're removing a lot of recent games from the system for anyone who gets a PSP Go. If I get one, there's bound to be old games I could get for cheap, but wouldn't be able to play because they're not available on PSN and there's no UMD port.

[idolminds]

If Sony is smart, they've lined up the entire PSP back catalog on PSN. That kind of thing I can get behind. While I want hard copies of games, having games never go "out of print" online would be great.

[Quemaqua]

I have no interest, I think it's shitty, and I think the move to digital distribution for a portable format is stupid.  I'm sure many people think it's fine, but fuck this shit.  If they move to online-only for a *portable*, I'll just stop buying games.

[iPPi]

Meh.

[W7RE]

I like the move to digital distribution. No cartridges to carry around or keep track of. It's just all on the system. I've been trying to stick to DD for new PC games too for the same reason.

I sort of want to buy spore, and it's 75% off if you preorder Galactic Adventures. Unfortunately that's only from the EA store, and I want it through Steam.

[gpw11]

I'm not all that impressed.  Keep in mind I still think the DSi was a retarded redesign so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[Xessive]

I am glad about one thing: in the interview he said that the PSP Go is not replacing the original PSP, which not being phased out. It's just an alternate choice for people who prefer ONLY digital distribution.

It's nice that this one comes with onboard storage space (about frickin' time) bu, again, it's not a deciding factor. Right now I have an 8GB memory stick on mine and I'm nowhere near filling it. If I really feel the need to jump up to 16GB I can always get a new memstick. And if by some grand miracle I decide I want to buy games via digital distribution that's still a viable option on my PSP anyway.

I really wish Sony would actually support and enrich their own formats. They came up with the UMD and now they're phasing it out. WHen the PSP was first announced I thought it was stupid for them to introduce a new portable format when they already had MiniDisc (MD), which they could have repurposed and designed the PSP around. The disc inside the MD casing is exactly the same dimensions as the one inside a UMD which are both exactly the same as the MiniCD (like a regular CD but about ½ the size) which can be placed onto the  smaller indentation on any disc tray (PC, DVD, CD Player). The option to make their formats universal is there, they just choose not to take it. Adding to the irony, of course, is that UMD stands for "Universal Media Disc" but it's designed to only work with the PSP.

Sony can be dicks like that quite often. They jam a new format on us claiming its superiority and convincing us to stick with it, then they shoot themselves in the foot and screw us in the process. Naturally, the cycle will repeat with their next big format idea.

As Que said, if Sony switches everything solely to digital distribution then I'm out. I will just focus on paintball, football, parkour, and hide & seek. I will also be less discriminating about the legitimacy of any Sony products I acquire.

[gpw11]

Sony has a huge problem with formats.  MD actually was a good technology before large storage mp3 players became as affordable as it is today.  They were small and durable enough to take anywhere, didn't skip when you were boarding, skiing, skating, or running, you could drop those motherfuckers like you wouldn't believe, and the cheap removable storage was great if you needed to bring a lot of music with you for whatever reason.   You could fit 300+ min. of music on a cheap-ass tiny disc and I couldn't notice any real sound quality problems considering I was using $20 ear buds.  At the time even 1GB flash players were a fair bit more than $100, so expandable storage was a big deal.

The thing that killed it was they didn't make it mp3 compatible so you HAD to use their software to transfer it to Atrac3 or whatever it was they used.  Kind of a bitch as it was unintuitive and clunky compared to Creative's drag and drop mp3 interface.

[Cobra951]

The audio quality of the format sucks compared to CD (which is itself not exactly stellar).  That's the reason I thumbed my nose at it when it came out.  The whole proprietary thing didn't help either.

[idolminds]

[Cobra951]

Hahaha!  Perfect!

[Xessive]

Awesome

[gpw11]

The audio quality of the format sucks compared to CD (which is itself not exactly stellar).  That's the reason I thumbed my nose at it when it came out.  The whole proprietary thing didn't help either.

Yeah, I guess I'm one of the "lucky" people who really can't tell 99% of the time.

[scottws]

I had a MD player and I couldn't tell.  The quality was certainly better than the 128 kbps MP3s that were common at the height of MD popularity.

I have no idea what the bitrate of the average file on a MD disc was, so maybe that comparison to MP3 is not fair.

I remember my MD player/recorder had kind of a neat feature where if you wanted to re-do the order of tracks on your disk, you could edit the table on the player itself and it would rearrange them.  It wouldn't actually move the track, but just renumber them and seek as necessary.  It also had a digital optical input, and if you had a CD player with a digital optical out, you could do a direct digital record that way.

[Pugnate]

I wish they'd just work on a PSP2.

[Xessive]

I wish they'd just work on a PSP2.

A PSP that can play PS2 games. That would be.. just great!

[idolminds]

The Go is $250. Fail of epic proportions.

At least they said all new games would be on PSN and UMD, and they showed off Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil for PSP (all new games, not PS1 ports or something).

Just to put the price into perspective, you can buy an Xbox 360 for less. You can go out and buy a PSP 3000 and a 16GB memory stick which would give you ALL the functionality of the Go plus the ability to still use UMDs...for less.

[Cobra951]

I want it to fail epically, so, good!

[Quemaqua]

Absolutely.  They need to learn their bloody lesson.

[Xessive]

The Go is $250. Fail of epic proportions.

Ha! Good news I hope it topples like a poorly balanced sack of potatoes on a flagpole.

[idolminds]

Something interesting. The PSP Go doesnt have an external battery for piracy reasons (it was the battery hack that allowed for widespread custom firmware use).

But on the plus side, they mention there will be 300-350 legacy UMD games put up on PSN before or at launch of the new system, and 30-50 PS1 games.

[Cobra951]

The Go is $250. Fail of epic proportions.

At least they said all new games would be on PSN and UMD, and they showed off Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil for PSP (all new games, not PS1 ports or something).

Just to put the price into perspective, you can buy an Xbox 360 for less. You can go out and buy a PSP 3000 and a 16GB memory stick which would give you ALL the functionality of the Go plus the ability to still use UMDs...for less.

Michael Pachter agrees with you.

[Xessive]

Man, this was a profoundly stupid move from Sony. I think it would have been prudent of them to enrich what they already have in the PSP-3000 and its predecessors :EDIT: until the next generation portable device (PSP2 or something) becomes imminent.

[K-man]

the move to DD as the sole method of distribution on a platform is inevitable.  I would venture a guess and say that at least one next gen console will be solely DD, and two cycles from now most (if not all) will be.

[scottws]

the move to DD as the sole method of distribution on a platform is inevitable.  I would venture a guess and say that at least one next gen console will be solely DD, and two cycles from now most (if not all) will be.

Those Phantom guys were on to something.  They were just years too soon.

[idolminds]

I still think DD only isn't going to be that great of an idea for a good while yet. There are still a lot of people that can't get high speed, in the US as well as many other countries. Even then a lot of places have bandwidth caps, and looking toward the future games will be getting larger, not smaller. PS3 games come on media thats 25-50GB.

Portable games still fit into the realm of "small download", so it makes some sense there.

[Quemaqua]

I will never support it.  If that really becomes the only way to get games, I honestly may just start devoting all my time to tabletop.  I can't say for sure, and I know that in any case I'll hate it, but... it's a possibility.

[Pugnate]

the move to DD as the sole method of distribution on a platform is inevitable.  I would venture a guess and say that at least one next gen console will be solely DD, and two cycles from now most (if not all) will be.

The reason I find that hard to believe is because the rest of the world hasn't taken to DD as readily.

[K-man]

I could be completely off base here.  But DD is a win/win for developers and distributors, and it has some intrinsic value to the customer as well, being able to grab a game without even leaving the house to purchase it.  It just seems like an inevitable conclusion.  High speed Internet access is starting to become very widespread.  It's not widespread enough at this point, but it will be.

I hate the idea of sole DD, because I like owning a physical manifestation of my purchases.  But Steam, XBL, and PSN are proving that DD Is a viable distribution platform.

[Quemaqua]

They're proving it's viable for some people and some products.  I don't think they're proving more than that, yet.  At least I sure fucking hope not.