Is the PSP GO A Risky Investment into $ONY?

Author's Rating:

Pros: small pocket form factor, lightweight, less to carry

Cons: inherently flawed controls, no backwards compatibility, SONY pricing.

The Bottom Line: 
GO's a great device that falls short due to SONY's marketing strategy and its lack of a second analog stick. Its cool, but in no way cost effective.

Author's Review
THE PSP GO is a poorly conceived system which has been executed nearly perfectly. 

Many lingering problems from the old PSP’s concerning control and connectivity have  been carried over,  while some factors such as size and weight have been properly addressed and altered to make the GO a very cool device.  But, the biggest problem with it is going to be its  lack of physical media and its inability to use old hardware and old games left over from the prior 3 PSP iterations.

The old PSP and its games steadily get cheaper on store shelves while the PSP GO demands a $250 buy in price and its games are only subject to price drops at SONY’s whim. Where you can walk into most stores and buy used games at a discount, the PSP GO does not afford you that possibility or opportunity. In many ways, the PSP GO makes perfect arguments against the industries move to 100% digitaly downloaded media.  


FORM FACTOR

The PSP GO is a slidetop unit which is similar to SONY’s Mylo device and some cellphone sliders on the market. Physically it is around the size of an iPhone when collapsed, much smaller than a Nintendo DS and much shorter than the current PSP.  

The face of the unit contains two speakers with excellent volume for their size.  The one button that remains for the face is the PS logo button which in-game, launches the menu screen.

When the slider is closed, the GO reverts to a large analog clock. You can also at this point access its internal calendar where you can view months and dates. Of course, you can set the GO to sleep when the slider is shut, rather than display the clock.

Once it is opened up, the body reveals its buttons and analog nub.
The screen brightness, equalizer,  and volume buttons have been moved to the very top of the slide out screen.  Though you have to tilt the body to see them to know what to push, after a while you can get used to it and it will feel natural.

The shoulder button feel will vary from person to person, but, I found the new shoulder buttons to be just about “right” in feel for my hands. The analog nub  has much tighter play than the old models, but, what will disappoint some is that its angle with the D-Pad has been changed and  its easier for smaller length thumbs to use than larger hands.

With 16GB of Flash memory, you have space for roughly 13 games. With the GO, you won’t have to carry around pouches containing disks anymore which is a big plus. Unfortunately this means you will also have to secure a place with WiFi that you can download from. 
Fortunately, there is some room for memory expansion as the PSP GO does have a Memory Stick Micro M2 slot.  M2's are dirt cheap nowadays with rapidly declining prices: 
8GB is around $40 and 16GB is just $80.  (I still remember the old days almost 3 years ago when a 2GB Memory Stick was $198)



PROBLEMS

One of my lingering disappointments with the PSP GO is the fact that, although SONY gave it a form factor I like, they still have not incorporated a second analog stick.  And that makes all the difference in gameplay in many game genres – specifically First Person Shooters.   Modern First Person shooters require two analog sticks:  one for movement and the other for camera angles (looking).  Without two sticks, you end up being forced to use the face buttons to look around. A perfect example of this ridiculousness is found in PSP game RAINBOW 6 VEGAS.  Aiming is ridiculously difficult and the game feels unnatural compared to what we all enjoy playing on the Playstation consoles.    Because of this continued omission, the system is fundamentally flawed. It wouldn’t be difficult to implement the control scheme because PSP games can have firmware updates or control modifications for forwards or backwards compatibility.   What really kills me is that the Start and Select buttons have been placed where the second analog stick should go.  *sigh*  It feels as if SONY is mocking me.

Some types of games such as racing, 3rd person shooters, and any game where you can use just the D-Pad to play, do not suffer from the lack of dual analog sticks.  Digital images of classic Playstation games are therefore reasonable to play in this environment.

Another design disappointment is that on the front, there is no raised ridge to protect the screen. Nothing at all. If you place it in your pocket with your keys, or on a table face down  it will gradually get scratched.   Right now there are screen protectors on the Gamestop shelves but I shouldn’t have to buy them. This could have been designed to avoid this. Perhaps Sony could have even made replaceable screen covers with themes to make a market for people who want customizability?



DOWNLOADING GAMES TO THE FLASH DRIVE
 
The biggest change with the PSP GO from the PSP 3000 is that the UMD drive has been completely removed and  has been replaced by high density flash memory. This change allows the PSP GO to be reduced in size to its current form, more than 30% smaller than the PSP 3000, but, it ensures that  if you are a current PSP owner, you cannot use your old games on it.  The only way to move games to the PSP GO is via the internet from the SONY store.

First lets talk about current PSP owners.

The GO will not work with any of your old peripherals. Not even the camera.  The AC adapter port has been changed to a thinner design , your UMD’s, your video out composite cables,  GPS attachments, etc. The only piece of equipment you may use is your old headphones.

What SONY should have done was instead of making UMD’s, they should have put games on mini-DVD disks and added a removable UMD case to protect them. This way you could remove the disk from the case and use a computer to transfer the music from the DVD to the PSP GO in data form. Of course SONY wouldn’t do that because someone might be able to figure out a way to use the disk over and over on multiple PSP’s even if they incorporated a disk registry to force you to verify your copy like Microsoft currently does.  It woulda’ been great, but its not happening.

What we are left with is wireless downloading.   You can get Playstation Network redeemable game downloads on cards.  All you gotta’ do is enter the code on the screen from the card and the game will begin to download directly to the GO’s SSD.  Obviously you must have access to the internet or you cannot access the download servers.   Downloading Twisted Metal over my home WiFi (Verizon Fios)  took less than 10 minutes.   Of course, without WiFi, you’d likely have to visit a Starbucks or  McDonalds or any place that offers WiFi. 

Another option is to connect to your PS3 (if you have one) and download directly through the PS3's connection to the internet. This is likely the best option if you already own a PS3 and wanted a PSP to migrate your online content.

The last option is to use SONY's "Media Go" software on your desktop computer to download from the SONY online store to the GO.  In the past, PSP users could use Media Go to download from the net to their memory sticks, but, now with 16GB  of storage (or an M2 flash card)
you can download content without much hassle.
Fortunately, you're old PSN game and movie purchases can be imported to the Go once you add it to your PSN account.
Game saves on your old memory cards, however, will require you to manually transfer them to an M2 memory card.

Could SONY have at least  designed Go to accept old Memory Stick Pro Duo's rather than yet another obscure/proprietary memory format?

The Go’s connectivity also includes Bluetooth.  You can sync a PS3 controller with it to play, or you can sync a Bluetooth headset. This is a nice feature because with it you can use a headset to either talk smack during online games, or use that headset for SKYPE  phone calls (which I love since I can chat hours upon hours with my girlfriend who has Skype on her office computer).  Anyone with SKYPE and WiFi can contact one another so long as they have WiFi access. Calls are free from computer to computer, but calls to landline require SKYPE credits be purchased.

Unfortunately, SONY snatched the mini-USB port from the top of the unit.  Woulda’ been nice if I could plug it directly to the PS3 to charge or use the PSP Camera without new cables.

SONY is releasing an adapter for the GO which allows it to connect to old peripherals, but, you'll have to spend even more to buy it.

Unfair any?


FIRMWARE and HARDWARE

The Go’s screen is slightly improved over the PSP3000.  There is definitely a sharper quality to the graphics without some of the aliasing problems and artifacts left on screen referred to as “ghosting”.  The screen has shrunk slightly, from 4.3" to 3.8" but maintains the same resolution as the previous models.

I also think the screen’s color temperature and contrast is a slight improvement over the outgoing PSP.

Too bad, SONY didn’t see fit to upgrade the CPU to higher than 333Mhz because overall, the internet browser and the game menus seem to work at about the same speed as they have in the past. 
What I can say is that having the SSD drive makes a huge improvement over game load times. Everything in-game starts much faster than before.   Another great advantage of the SSD is that you can  pause the game (a process that takes a few seconds) and you can close the system to put in your pocket - then reopen it to turn it back on from “sleep” and begin playing where you left off. 

We were able to get about 4 and a half hours of continuous play
on a full charge. This is about normal for a device like this but I'm dissapointed that the charging port is now proprietary and I can't use old AC or DC car chargers to keep it plugged in. Time to rebuy everything !  When the battery eventually wears out, you'll need to mail the system to SONY because the battery is no longer user replaceable.


BOTTOM LINE
 
Instead of paying $250 plus tax for the PSP GO, you could buy a brand new PSP CORE pack for $199.99 which comes with a UMD game, a downloadable movie,  a 4GB Memory Stick Duo,  and you could add a headset with inline remote control for just $30.  You would have access to a plethora of games with steadily decreasing prices. 

The PSP GO’s price makes it unreasonable because it is slotted between the existing PSP and around $50 less than the new PS3 Slim released to appease Christmas shopping parents this year. 
Both of which are better choices. 

Since this device cannot play old UMD disks, it is absolutely useless as a replacement for your old PSP.  SONY, in all their infinite money saving wisdom decided that there would be no free game downloading to replace our UMD disks with digital game images. 
I suppose they did this because if you could download games you owned on UMD, you could then turn around and sell those used disks to Gamestop.  Instead, SONY is releasing each game image at full retail price.  That’s simply unfair to GO users considering UMD disks get cheaper on store shelves.
 
But what remains to be seen is how long SONY continues to produce UMD games for the existing three PSP’s to use.  If SONY decides to pull the rug from under us, and stop making UMD disks, like they did as they moved away from  movies,  we’d all end up being forced to upgrade to a GO sooner or later. And its not as if they haven’t done this before. Starting proprietary formats that they abandon soon after is one of their common business practices (can you say: Minidisc?).  It’s a slippery slope with SONY.

As it is, the GO is a well manufactured handheld with great tech appeal. If SONY had given it dual analog sticks  I would have looked past its incompatibility with legacy peripherals but, as it stands, just like with the PS3, SONY is giving the gamer less of what they want (and need)  and taking the route that nets them the most profit.  

Considering the GO’s premium price and its inability to play legacy games, their strategy may not work this time.


PSP (3rd generation)-  http://www.epinions.com/review/Sony_PSP_3000_Black_Console_83391544/content_461576310404


NEW PS3  SLIM -  http://www.epinions.com/review/Sony_PlayStation_3_Slim_120_GB_Black_Console/content_482917912196