If there’s one thing I hate (there are many), it’s the triumvirate of evil dominating our current console market: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Microsoft is in a few other triumvirates dominating the technological facets of my life, but that’s another column for the launch of Windows 7.
The thing I hate most about the console makers is the manner in which they design, manufacture and sell handheld gaming units. They come up with an initial idea, put it out to market pasture and watch for one to two years before they completely re-design the unit and re-sell it to everyone for the original price. Sometimes, this happens a third time (like in the case of the Nintendo DS).
This has almost become a business model, selling your beta product to the open market to test before re-designing the thing and putting it back out how it should’ve been the first time if it had ever had any form of decent beta testing. Perhaps most annoying is the mindless technoweenie consumer base that goes along with this.
I could scream at them all day, “You’re corporate enablers!”
There was the Gameboy, the Gameboy Pocket, and the Gameboy Color. Then there was the Gameboy Advance, the Gameboy Advance SP, and the Gameboy Micro. Then the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo DS Lite, and the DSi. Now let’s count! 1-ah-ah, 2-ah-ah, 3-ah-ah — you get the idea: For three gaming systems they could have potentially sold you nine handhelds. Now that’s marketing!
Sony tried that crap with the PS2, then the PS2 Slim, and then the PS3, then the PS3 Slim (which sold one million units in the first three weeks alone).
And now they’re doing it, or at least attempting to, with the PSP Go.
As any gamer worth their salt knows, the PSP is a decent handheld and digital media platform that provides a great base for hackers tinkering around with Linux and similar operating systems. Nothing to be ashamed of, Sony, unlike your tawdry PS3.
The PSP Go features no UMD drive and forces you to buy all your games digitally, directly from Sony. This nullifies your existing game library and means you can never trade in a game. This also allows Sony to directly control the pricing for all the games on this system, and cuts out good ol’ capitalistic competition.
It has a smaller screen, smaller controls and features a non-removable battery, sorry pirates. The PSP Go also utilizes proprietary plugs and cabling, so no more USB for you! Buy Sony!
You can’t use the screen when it’s closed, save for the clock and calendar. It also still uses the now antiquated 802.11b Wi-Fi standard, frequently disconnects from wireless routers and forces you to restart the download from bit one, doesn’t allow you to play a game while downloading, and is generally like getting kicked in the crotch for $250 (keep in mind
that you can get a PS3, which is a BluRay player, for $50 more).
For a system whose only manner of adding additional software is through a wireless connection, lacking is too weak a word.
However, it looks very sleek and folds up very neatly, to be smaller than the original, which is the point, I guess, and the only good point.
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