f13.net

Looks slick. (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3174458)
(http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/5/8/7/6/9/8/ss_preview_PSP_GO_005.bmp.jpg?slideshow=true)

A friend of mine was saying that rumor has it the thing appearently wont have a disk drive, and that all content for it is going to be download only.  I tried to tell him that sony wouldnt be that stupid, but he insisted it was accurate.

Any comment on that?

There's no UMD drive.

I don't follow the PSP at all, I've never even held one.  Were all the original PSP games on UMD drive? 

Seems pretty silly to kill BC on this thing when the PSP isn't really that old.  If it's download only that also kills a major portion of a brick and mortar storefront.  That seems... off.  What am I missing?

For the foreseeable future, the PSP3000 (the current model, UMD drive and all) will be sold alongside the new PSPGo.

As for B&M, they'll probably release bigger titles in a fashion similar to the way they handled Patapon 2.  You can buy it at a B&M, but the box only contains a download code for use on PSN.

There are downloadable games for the PSP now (not counting the homebrew/pirate scene) but UMD discs is the main distribution mechanism for PSP games currently.

We have to wait and see what will be the distribution mechanisms for games for the PSP Go. Just cause it doesn't have an UMD drive that doesn't mean downloadable content is the only option.

For example, the unit does have a memory card slot, and ignoring the extra markup Sony adds to it's own Memory Stick format, flash memory, for a manufacturer is < $5 for 2 GB ($5 is the consumer price). UMD discs can't be cheap for Sony to make since they are the only ones doing it and the volume is relatively small so shipping games on flash memory would only be a small cost increase (around $1 or $2 would be my estimate).

Another possibility is for them to ship games on mini-DVDs (or even regular sized ones) for the PC and transfer them over to the PSP Go using an USB cable.

If it had a phone I would consider it, but my days of schleping around multiple gadgets are behind me.

I figure there might be no more than fifty people who will be sorry to see UMD go.  I don't know anyone other than my son who uses a PSP, and besides that using a Memory Stick would be superior from a technical standpoint.

Also Sony is making a lot of stuff available on PSN and given the current interconnectivity between my PSP 2000 and PS3, I think it's a fine progression.

Oh, also, I have a PSP and I hated carting around UMD's on the off chance I wanted to play something different so good riddance.

I completely agree with this even though I carry around a sack full of carts for my DS, but the difference is that they aren't as fragile and I don't worry about them being damaged or dirty nearly as much.  Loading PSP games onto a MStick would be a win, which is what you have to do when you buy one from PSN anyway.

The PSP Go has 16 GB of internal flash memory so it can store quite a few games internally before needing extra flash memory cards.

For real. They have some really nice Cybershot phones (overseas unfortunately). Walkman phones are OK. Put it all with the PSP though and I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Don't know why they haven't done this.

So what is the memory footprint of the average High end PsP game, like the Ratchet and Clank game or the Disgaea Prinny spin off?

UMD discs hold 1.8 GB max. The PSP 3000 has 64 MB of RAM, which is double what the original PSP had.

Adding on to what I said above they could also release an external UMD drive.

Am I the only person that hates the sliding panel design?

Just give us a clamshell or one piece. The thing looks like they're trying to be different just for the sake of being different.

I don't like them either (I hate slider phones). However, by taking out the UMD drive and going with the slider design it does allow them to make the PSP narrower while still being roughly the same thickness.

They could, but this seems unwieldy.  It would work better if you could dump your UMDs to the PS3 and then xfer to the PSP.  Or, how about "they will sell you the same games again on PSN"?

You wouldn't actually play the games through the drive (though I guess you could if you really wanted to). It would a way to transfer the game to the internal flash memory.

Ah, see, I wasn't thinking like an end-user.  That would be best, sure.

I don't have a problem with the slider as much as the fact that they completely redesigned the thing but didn't add another analog stick. Why the heck not? Isn't that the number one more requested thing for a game billed as a "portable" version of the Playstation? I certainly want one on mine. Seems like a retarded miss. Even more so than the continued lack of a keyboard. What is the brainblock here?!

All for "slimmer"? For what? To capture what market? There a few million folks out there who don't have a NDS and didn't like the PSP because it was too big?

I can get the lack of a touchscreen (would need so much rewritten). And I can get that you'd need to re-buy your UMD games, mostly because I can't see anyone sidegrading to this. But that plus a redesign that doesn't really solve anything substantive also apparently comes with a higher price.

Oh and I love the redundancy of Playstation Portable Go.

Adding a second analog stick would "fork" the platform, creating games that are PSP Go-only. That might be okay if the PSP Go was the only model going forward (and you were willing to totally ignore your installed base) but it isn't since they are keeping the PSP 3000 around.

Which is both true and just adds to my confusion.

They created a Slim PSP that didn't solve any design problems for a mythical unidentified market while also offering the same core PSP for the one market they probably have any chance of actually getting, all the while supporting a format that is mostly just an extra pain in the ass portion of publishing and distribution.

Granted, there's always the question of whether there's a big enough market of people who want dual analog to compel developers to support that too. But they don't seem to have a problem sub-dividing their core console market, so why the fear for the PSP, which has shipped more than twice the number of units as PS3?

People are buying PSPs, not PSP games. It's the hacker unit of choice. On top of that, UMDs cost too much, are one of the last of Sony's proprietary techs, and they've fallen pretty in love with digital download.

Great. Since my original PSP is dead and I have a stack of UMD games I'm stuck upgrading to another UMD based PSP? How about a way to transfer all my games to a memory stick or the new portable console?

SONY is so god damn stupid sometimes.

What I'm wondering is how Sony is going to expect to move a lot of these at a $250 price point. Unless I'm totally mistaken, sales of the PSP early on were pretty tepid in no small part due to the price compared to the far cheaper DS.

Wrong. The PSP, when launched, trashed the original DS so badly it forced Nintendo to revamp the DS immediately.

Is it illegal to posses a pirated version of a UMD game you actually own?

In theory you are allowed to make a backup copy of computer software that you own. However, thanks to the DMCA it's illegal to circumvent copy protection. That means if your computer software is copy protected, making a backup that isn't authorized through the copy protection scheme is illegal, even though legally you are supposed to have the right to make a backup. And UMDs are copy protected.

Wuh? In what market? NDS has been outselling PSP since launch. Was there something like this specifically in the Japanese market (since the NDS came to the US five months before the PSP did)?

In every market. The DS Lite was the unit that was beating the PSP. When the PSP came out against the original bulky DS it was a complete reversal of the tide in the portable market.

Not so much.

Q1 2005 there were 5.27mm NDS units and 2.97 PSP in Japan and North America (hadn't launched in EU yet). The NDS lead until the EU launch in Q4. Q1 2006 is the only time the history of both devices where the PSP had a larger installed worldwide base than NDS. But the difference was less than 1mm units (except in America, which was between 1-3mm depending on month), and they've never lead in Japan. This is not a tide shift nor a thrashing by any stretch.

The DS Lite launch in Japan in March 2006 and US/EU in June did turn it back around for Nintendo, but a) they didn't have some insane deficit behind the PSP; and, b) weren't reacting to PSP sales in launching the Lite. They couldn't. The timeline for manufacturing and shipping products to retail is long enough they likely had the Lite designed when they launched the original DS.

Besides, the PSP was bigger, much more expensive, had no library to be backwards compatible with, and was marketed (in my opinion) the wrong way. And I bought the PSP at launch, and have used that much much more than I ever have the NDS. So I'm not throwing some crazy anti-Sony bias in here. Just wanted to clarify.

So do we know any specs on this yet, other then the onboard memory, for comparison purposes to the PSP-3000?

Will it do all the same things the PSP-3k does, just without a UMD and with a different form factor?

Basicly, im curious as to why i should buy one vs the other.  What feature is supposed to make this one better.

For me, one of the big failing of the PSP was that it was too big (and seemingly fragile) to really just stick in a pocket while you are out and about all day, especially if you wanted to have a couple of UMD's with you.  Since the new one is only slightly larger than an iPhone it should be much more comfortable to cart around.

So, I think the new form factor is a total win but, like I said earlier, without a phone component I'm just not interested.

/exactly

Don't want to tote around multiple gadgets. Phones have become computers (+ camera, albeit a crappy one, but that's good enough for 98% of usage) so no need to lug around additional gadgets…

…and if at home, why would you not opt for a full screen experience (unless you're an adolescent banished to your room or you share an orphanage TV^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcommunal TV and must confine yourself to your bunk so you can play in privacy…)?

Dude.  It's cheese you can listen to outside.

Ordered one from Dell, got it for ~215 with a coupon code.   Grand Turismo 5, Dissidia and a couple other titles look to be worth the price of admission.  I've never owned a PSP before so I don't have to get all wrapped up in the UMD drama.

edit:  6FWJ247J1P44CK is the coupon code for the black PSP Go from Dell.  I believe it is good until the end of October.

Has anyone used PSP/PSP Go as an mp3 player in their car, and if so, do you have any complaints?
I've never owned a PSP so I'm curious, how are they for directories and ease of use/searching if I wanted to save entire mp3 albums? I thought I remember reading or hearing somewhere that you can't make a file called psp\music\band name\album\ and have that work, is that true? If so, does it also effect the car's navigation of albums/mp3?

You can only go one folder deep into the MUSIC folder. So PSP\MUSIC\Band Name - Album Name\ would be your best bet.

It really is super-rudimentary as a music player.

Thanks