Description

The PSP GO is a beautifully redesigned version of the regular PSP. It has a totally new and revolutionary form factor. The screen slides down over the front of the control pad making it an very compact and sleek looking console. The hinge, holding together the screen and the control pad, is more strong and robust than I expected.

Besides its appearance and built-in Bluetooth the PSP GO didn’t do anything radically different from its predecessor. It has bassicaly the same internals and plays the same games. The only other difference is the fact that it is the first handheld in history to go completely digital and thereby moves away from cardridges or discs. This may sound confienient but it had in fact some significant downsides.

When Sony discontinues the PSP store in the future, games are only there as long as you stored them of the handheld and on a memory card. Besides that games are linked to an PS account making it hard to sell them on the second hand market. But what really hindered the sales of the PSP Go is the fact that digital downloads made it impossible to sell physical games for the system in retail stores. It is totally understandable that retailers where therefore reluctant to sell the handheld itself. Last but not least anno 2009 many gamers, especially in countries with slow internet, where not very open mined for a digital only handheld resulting in the fact that the console didn’t sell well.