Greetings Readers!

As many of you know, I am a longtime fan of Sony’s PSP and I was initially looking forward to its sequel which turned out to be the PSP Go, but unfortunately it appears that Sony has set the portable gaming device up for failure.  There are three primary ways that Sony is setting the PSP Go up for failure which are the focus of this post.

First, the biggest problem facing the PSP Go is the price.  Considering the PSP Go plays the same content as the original PSP, there is no reason that Sony should be selling it at $250 when the original PSP which will continue to be sold, sells for under $170.  While the original PSP was $250 when it shipped, those were very different economic times than what we are in now and the general rule I go by is that if a portable gaming device is more expensive  than the most popular gaming console, it is overpriced.  While it is great not having to deal with UMD disks that are constantly breaking, I don’t think that justifies the cost when you realize that the screen is also smaller and and despite your expectations that the battery life would be better since there is no disk drive, they are actually about the same as the normal PSP.  Oh, and the battery is not removable which is another strike against the Go.

Of course the price point of the system is only one big factor in the overall price of the device.  The fact that you will need all new accessories is going to be another major expense tied to the device.  If that wasn’t bad enough, it looks like the games will cost more to download than they do in UMD format for the original PSP.  Are you kidding me?  I am going to have to pay more for downloadable games than for games with considerable production costs?  I should be saving money because I am not in need of boxes, instructions, disks and whatever else, not spending more to get less!  I am tired of paying more and getting less.  Speaking of paying more and getting less…

Did you think I was finished talking about how much more you are going to have to pay to own the PSP Go?  If you thought so, you would be wrong.  In the ultimate slap in the face to everybody who already has the original PSP, the UMD conversion plan that Sony had once announced has been cancled for “legal and technical reasons.”  PSP owners, myself included, had thought that the price to migrate would be fairly cheap since we could convert all of our PSP game collection to digital versions for the PSP Go.  Instead, the greedy fools at Sony now expect us to pay for our games all over again.  I guess they figured that if people bought all of their music again when they migrated from cassette to CD that we would be willing to do it when we “upgraded” from a PSP to a PSP Go.  They would be wrong in that assumption.

I had a lot of hope for the PSP Go when it first was announced but I think that hope is pretty much gone.  With the launch of the PSP Go later this week (Oct. 1st), Sony has set the system up to fail miserably.  It certainly isn’t any competition for the lower priced DSi or even the iPhone.  I had planned on getting the PSP Go on launch day just as I did with the PSP, but considering the overall cost of the device, games and accessories, I now have no plans on purchasing the device.  If you can’t sell you system to somebody like me that collects game systems regardless of whether I play them or not, you have real problems.  Get ready for all of the PSP Go is a complete flop stories.

Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!

Follow Global Geek News on Twitter!

-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray