I think I’m one of the 10 people on Earth that is looking forward to plunking down the cash to buy a PSP Go this Fall. To be honest the hook manifests itself in the downloadable games – I totally covet digital downloads and the thought that I don’t have to carry around a bunch of UMD discs is extremely attractive. On top of that the new design is pretty neat, and the overall package is significantly smaller. What’s not to love?
Well, a couple things. First off, and this is the lesser of the two qualms, gamers tend to be upset that Sony didn’t add a second analog stick to the device. I’m completely lost on this gripe. It’s been clear to me that the PSP Go was more a refinement of the PSP line than an evolution, and therefore since the device relies on the PSP’s back-catalog of games there’s no point to add a second analog stick. If the focus of the Go is to play all of the PSP games that are already out, games that haven’t been developed with 2 analog sticks in mind, why would they add one now and change everything? Not only that, but they’d put developers in a jam since they’d have to decide whether it was worth adding support for a second stick to appease the Go customers only. I’m always against splitting the market, especially when it comes to game consoles, and that’s exactly what a second analog stick would do. Save it for the PSP 2.
The more obvious complaint about the PSP Go is its price. At $250 it costs the same as the standard PSP did at the product’s launch in 2005. It’s $80 more than the previous model right now, and to be honest it looks like even more of a sham with the PS3’s price dropped to $299. Basically, consumers are faced with the choice of getting a PSP Go for $250, or paying just $50 more (less than the price of a game) to get a PS3 which plays blu-ray movies and next-generation games.
Additionally, Microsoft is dropping the price of the Xbox 360 Pro in reaction to the Sony price cuts, so you can get a 360 with a useable hard drive for $250 now. That’s right, the same price as the PSP Go. That’s not even mentioning the Nintendo Wii. Based on the value-transfer in the console market just in the past few weeks, I really think Sony needs to cut the price on the Go if they want to sell more than 10 of them.
There’s a couple ways they could do this. The first and most-obvious way would be to drop the price to $199. However, at Sony they might think that cutting the price of the Go before it hits the market would degrade its reputation as a premium product to potential purchasers. The question of whether or not average consumers even know about the PSP Go yet, or more importantly if they know what it costs, is an entirely different matter.
The second route they could take is to just bundle in some extra games or accessories. Right now Sony has started a program where, if you register your PSP G0 by October 10th, 2009, you’ll get a free copy of Gran Turismo PSP. Why not bundle $50 worth of PSN Store credit with the device? Or at least bundle 3 downloadable games. That way they could stick with the $250 price but say it’s basically $199 since you’re getting $50 worth of games for free. Makes sense to me.
