Pre-E3 2009: PSP Go Confirmed

[wraggster]

IGN have posted an article and a decent shot of the newly announced PSP Go, heres their take on the breaking story:

Sony's E3 press conference might still be days away, but it would appear one of the company's biggest cats is out of the bag -- the PSP Go is real.

Yes, for some reason the latest episode of Qore is live and features host Veronica Belmont speaking in the past tense about E3 and getting a private demo of the PSP Go from SCEA Director of Hardware John Koller. Want the deets? Well, imagine a smaller PSP-3000 where you slide the top portion up to reveal the D-Pad, Select button, Start button, and traditional face buttons. The screen is going to be 3.8 inches, the unit is 44 percent lighter than the PSP-3000, there's no UMD drive, there's a Memory Stick micro slot, it's Bluetooth compatible so that you can use a headset and link it to your cell phone, and the unit packs 16 gigabytes of flash memory.



As if that news wasn't huge enough, the episode of the show features our first look at LittleBigPlanet Portable in action (the screen is in tight on Sackboy and packing a lot of color) and Koller says that there is a new Metal Gear and Gran Turismo coming to the PSP.

In terms of the family tree, Koller said that the PSP Go is not replacing the PSP-3000 but that both units will live in harmony on retail shelves -- although he did say that Sony likes 10-year lifecycles so the PSP Go should have a bit longer life than the PSP-3000. Still, Koller said the company plans to continue to support both downloadable and retail-based games. Belmont asked if there would be different games for the Go versus the traditional PSP; Koller responded that the units will have a similar catalog to begin with, but with time, he expects there to be some differences -- like maybe developers making smaller games that are shorter experiences.

Want to get your hands on the PSP Go? Koller said that the unit is expected to ship this fall.

[Nokiaman]

Horrible design.

[emulator2]

The verdict is out on how comfortable PSP Go will be to play games with given the change of shape. It will also be interesting to see whether the download only game purchase model will impact on the number of PSP releases and the shelf space given by retailers to the PSP.

I don't mind what new PSP models Sony release as long as they actually put some substance behind their remarks about increasing the quantity of games on the platform. So far it has been nothing but words. Any references Sony make to Gran Tourismo PSP are also a joke if they don't mention a release date (let alone year).

[watupgroupie]

Ugly as $#@! and the way its help in your hand, looks like it would be near impossible to play some games. This thing looks similar to a concept psp design months ago that showed up on the net. But it had cool things on it also, it looks like they took everything good about that concept, junked it and this is what they ended up with. Then again, I might be totally wrong and it's really easy to use.

[devdj]

what a crappy design it looks like a poor mans pandora to me i'm definitly not going to buy this it looks too gay to handle wtf were the designers and developers thinking bringing out $#@! like this and only downloadable games not everyone has super high speed internet.

[mike_jmg]

Don't know what you all are talking about
I really like the design and what you say about playability is complete rubish, the D-pad and buttons seem to be at almost the same distance as in a normal PS3 controler

Everytime I look at it I'm more convinced that I want one

[Paris/Tokyo]

The look is growing on me. I wouldn't call it ugly but it's underwhelming.

I'm still not convinced this will be comfortable to play games on. I don't understand why the screen was shrunk down, when it's a good chance that a handheld of this size would cramp up your hands.

[Qmark]

It will also be interesting to see whether the download only game purchase model will impact on the number of PSP releases and the shelf space given by retailers to the PSP.

There is little doubt dedicated games retailers will be reluctant to sell the Go, especially the great Gamestop behemoth, which bases about half its business on used games.
However, the 'big-box' discount stores, like Target and Wal-mart, and whatever the rough equivalent is in Europe (Asda?) will likely stock these, much like they do MP3 players and iPods. Less space required for slow-moving PSP games means more space for Disney and Hannah Montana DS games.