As you’re sure to know dedicated game consoles like the Nintendo DS and PSP have seen a ton of competition from the likes of mobile platforms such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Much of this competition comes from the fact that just about everybody now a days has a smartphone and included within the application stores behind these smartphones are thousands upon thousands of games with very palatable price tags.
Well, it seems that we have our first causality from the onslaught of these smartphone platforms. According to recent reports, Sony has done away with production of the PSP Go. As of now this has not been officially confirmed but reputable retailers including Amazon have updated their PSP Go product listings to say that production for the handheld will soon be discontinued by the manufacturer.
While much of this can be attributed to mobile platforms, it can also be attributed to the fact that Sony is gearing to launch their next generation portable handheld the NGP, commonly refereed to as the PSP 2.
If these reports are true, farewell PSP Go, you unfortunately won’t be missed.
Sony has announced that from Sunday, the price on a PSP handheld gaming device will be slashed to $130, from the previous $170. This is most likely to counter lower sales of the original PSP (PSP 3000), as the new Sony portable is getting nearer to release.
The PSP Go on the other hand, will retain its $200 price point.
Sony’s PSP hasn’t exactly had the smoothest road with the console as a whole never really catch on as much as Nintendo’s Nintendo DS. However, Sony forged ahead and went on to release the optical drive-less PSP Go which featured a large internal hard drive for the storage of games. Prior to its release it seemed like a good buy but once on the market consumers realized that having a device that only worked with the cloud wasn’t exactly the best as there were no used game or game sales.
Luckily, for those of you willing to do a bit of hacking some modders have managed to release a “Homebrew Enabler” that will allow you to run games that were only previously released on the PSP’s proprietary UMD format. Check out above video to see it in action where Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is loaded using the Prometheus ISO Loader program.
The Internet has been talking recently about the PSP reaching the end of its life cycle. I don’t know how they can even call it a life cycle considering the game library for the PSP was so lackluckster. But anyways, this talk has led many to speculate a PSP 2 being released by Sony. Sure, they had the PSP Go, but that was hardly a successor to the PSP and wasn’t well recieved.
Well today, the resume of Dominic Mason from AtomFire Productions has been spotted that says he developed for a PSP 2. Does this mean he knows something we don’t?
We’ll have to wait until this year’s E3 to find out.
Not too long ago an advertisement from Accesories4Gamers hinted us at the PSP-4000 but with no official confirmation from Sony we had no idea if it was just a typo or the announcement of a product early. But with the recent release of the PSP Go is it possible that Sony would already have another portable console already?
Well, perhaps the lack of a UMD drive in the PSP Go drove away enough potential buyers that Sony had to quickly develop a beefed up PSP with a UMD drive? Would have been nice but unfortunately the advertisement company responsible for the ad came forth and said “it was a mistake on our part”.
So, it looks like we won’t be seeing a new PSP, until Sony makes an announcement, of course.
Sony’s PSP refresh console, the PSP Go, was officially released in stores i Japan yesterday, and the first day sales numbers are fairly good: the new handheld device sold 28,275 units. While those are decent first day sales numbers, in comparison to the DSi — which sold 170,000 units during its first two days when it was released a year ago — it’s not that much. The PSP Go was released on October 1 in North America and Europe, and sales numbers for those territories haven’t been released yet.
It seems that the head honcho of independent game retailer Chips isn’t too confident in the future of the PSP Go in fact, he thinks its going to hit rock bottom faster than Sony expects.
During an interview with GI.biz Don McCabe went on record as saying:
I’m 99.9 percent sure it’s going to fail miserably, in which case it’s going to put back other potential people coming into the digital space
Well, if we’ve learned anything from Sony’s past hardware (PS3) we know that they sometimes have some pretty slow launches. Perhaps the PSP Go will defy the odds and come out on top? Only time will tell.
Today, Sony has announced that version 6.10 of the PSP firmware is now ready to be installed on hand held consoles everywhere. This update includes several big features such as SensMe which chooses songs stored on your PSP based on different moods you select.
Another interesting feature of 6.10 is the ability to tether a PSP Go with a Bluetooth capable cellphone for internet connectivity anywhere you can go.
That’s about it in terms of exciting features so get downloading!
hile the PSP Go isn’t officially set to go on sale until October 1st it seems that some Target locations have broken the street date, as you can see above.
This picture was taken by an Engadget reader who spotted the PSP Go in stock and on sale at a Target around Atlanta. We’re not sure exactly how many more Targets (if any) are selling the hardware but if you’re feeling lucky head over to your local store. What do you have to lose?
Sony has recently sent a memo to IGN that has effecitvely let the entire internet know that come October 1st the Playstation Store will have 16,000 peices of DLC for use with the brand new PSP Go.
If you’re scratching your head at this number, Sony breaks it down into several catagories: they will have 225 full downloadable games (PSP Minis, full PSP titles, PSN titles etc.) in addition to 2,300 movies and 13,300 TV episodes.
Sure, the number got a bit of a boost from the TV episodes but it is in fact 16,000 pieces of DLC which is all that matters. Now we’ll just have to see if another actually wants the PSP Go, right?
