PSP Go: Total Failure, Or Worthy Experiment?

I work in a gaming store. Within that store, we sell both the PSP and the DS. Because of this, I get to see the flow of systems that go into and out of my store.

Now. We got a total of six PSP Go units when it first came in. We also got a total of eight DSi XLs when it first came out. Since then we’ve sold out of the XLs and have gotten replenishments. The PSP Go? We still have three of them. Three out of six, one of which came back.

Let’s keep in mind that the XL came out, what, four or six months after the Go? Four or six months, and it has sold, more than double the number of the Go.

Am I allowed to call the PSP Go a colossal failure yet?

Here’s what one issue is, as far as I see it, and let’s face it, many have said this: compatibility. Do you have a PSP? Good for you, so do I. Do you have games for it? Yes? Same here. You like how the Go looks, you like the flip top, the layout and all that? That’s good. No, wait, don’t buy it yet! No, no, no, because those UMDs? They’re useless with it. Yup. No good with the Go. That’s right, any and all games you have are entirely useless with the new unit.

The XL? All the games you had for the DS and DSi still work. Except for the games you may have downloaded for the DSi from the Shop Channel, they’re non-transferable for some odd reason, but the others, the ones you bought at the store, those work perfectly fine.

This is part of the issue, but only part of it. The other is a massive issue, and it’s one that’s plaguing both Sony and Microsoft, and it’s one of pricing. See, when you buy online, you don’t have a hard copy of the game, you don’t have packaging or instructions, only a downloaded version of the software. There’s no real issue here, of course, at least not ideally. What the issue is in the pricing. Go and compare the price of a game you can buy on the Marketplace or on the Playstation Store versus what you’ll spend when buying it retail. Most of these games are on parity with their retail brethren. Parity. Go and look that word up. Go ahead. I’ll give you a paragraph break to do it.

Done it? Good, because the issue is that the two shouldn’t be on par. The downloaded ones should be cheaper than their retail cousins. There’s far less cost to the publishers: no packaging, no distribution costs, no instructions. They’ll have to pay for the online bandwidth, of course, but is that really such a huge thing? Is that really going to make such a huge difference? You’re not shipping the game to thousands upon thousands of retail outlets, you’re putting it up onto Sony’s and Microsoft’s servers.

That’s the issue with the whole downloadable model as it currently exists. Having the possibility of games offered online and off is good, but online isn’t a viable alternative until it’s also the cheaper.

The third issue is the price difference. The XL sold at a mere $20 more than the DSi and it played all the old games. The Go sold at a whopping $50 more than the PSP 3000 that was bundled with a game and a movie. If you look at the PSPs that were sold alone then the Go turns into a whole $80 difference. $50 to $80 more for a piece of hardware that won’t play your old games, versus $20 more for one that will.

Does this math make even a lick of sense to anyone?

I don’t have any numbers, but I’d be willing to bet that if we made any comparisons that the PSP 3000 model is probably outselling the Go.

With all of this in mind... does anyone else think it’s safe to call the PSP Go a failed experiment? Anyone? Because, after this, I don’t. I think that, right now, yes, it’s a failed experiment. Total abject failure UNDER THE CURRENT CONDITIONS. I think that, perhaps, if Sony fixed everything that’s wrong with the Go (horribly price point, ridiculous lack of compatibility with previous software, a battery that, despite the lack of UMD drive, has a shorter life span than the last model’s did, pricing parity between downloadable and retail copies of the same game), then maybe it would have a chance. But until these things are fixed, something that many could argue won’t happen until the eventual PSP2, then the Go will be a failure.