In a show of forward thinking stifled by corporate lethargy, it seems that Sony had a PSP Go planned since 2004 but didn’t think the infrastructure was ready for it. Well, Sony, you missed the boat on that one. As usual, you took the low-risk, low-reward path and as usual I’m going to mock you for it. Because you know what else wasn’t ready when it came out? The Wii.
Yes, the MotionPlus accessory for the Wii confirmed to everyone that Nintendo launched the Wii half-baked but still revolutionary enough. Sony, what if you released two PSPs at the beginning, one with a card slot and one with a UMD slot? The infrastructure would have grown (as you must have known it would) to embrace the cartridge-less version, and then there wouldn’t be this ridiculous and awkward changeover time.
At the PSP’s conception, there were ideas of a “NETTOWAKUSENTORIKKUMODERU,” which I believe is a Japanese way of saying “Network-centric model.” And why not?
Sony, don’t talk about the infrastructure not being ready. You are the infrastructure. You could have pulled strings and pushed standards and all that, but no, you hamstrung yourself by sticking with your crappy format and were satisfied with just enough sales to not look like a total chump. Well, Sony, if you’re okay with that, I guess I’m okay with that. Mainly because I’m not one of the loyal customers you could have done better by.
Okay, I’m giving them a bit too hard of a time over this, but seriously, they could have had a revolutionary product (which, if I’m honest, we would have laughed at when it launched), but instead they stuck us with good ol’ UMD. Nobody wins!
[via Electronista and Develop Online]
Why would you have laughed when it launched? Really, the only thing they should have changed from the beginning was making the thing a little thicker and adding a hard drive. The infrastructure to download games could have evolved at its own pace, because WiFi and USB were already there – so all you needed was the hard drive to put the games on. They could have just made *one* product a little thicker (or something) and been good from there.
Holy s*** I’m hearing an “erase your debt” commercial on Pandora right now. Anyways, yeah, the hard drive. And people seem really stuck on that other little nub, that wouldn’t have hurt either – although I’ll debate till I’m red in the face that plenty of good games were made before those big nubs were part of PlayStation’s controller, and therefore could have been made for the PSP.
Sony’s products are over priced and riddled with DRM. They are DRM obsessed. After I got bit by the Sony rootkit from a legitimately purchased CD I stopped buying CD’s; I stopped buying anything Sony in-fact. True story.
That, and the lik-sang incident. I will always avoid sony whenever possible.
http://www.lik-sang.com/
As a German customer, I’m EXTREMELY happy that Sony did not go for the Go from the start. We have extremely strict “child protection” (read: “censorship”) laws here, because of which software vendors may not distribute 18+ titles over the net.
Normally this isn’t a problem, as I buy practically all my games from the UK, anyway – but importing software in the world of download distribution means to at the very least break the contract you made with Sony if it is possible at all. Microsoft already uses IP-blocking technology which means that you don’t only need a fake account but also a VPN connection for XBox live if you live in Germany and still want to download the Map Packs for Gears of War. Go figure.
Nah, if I had the Go, I would have never been able to play Chains of Olympus or Resistance: Retribution. I really prefer the UMD – especially as the first thing I do after buying a disc is to copy the ISO image to a memory stick and put the disc on my shelf as a long-term backup…