Farewell PSP Go, We Barely Knew Ye

April 24 12:46 2011 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

The Sony PSP Go

The PSP Go is now, officially, dead. The beleaguered portable video game console was Sony’s attempt at a purely digitally-distributed platform. It didn’t take. The Sony portable was announced back in E3 2009 (June) and was released to the market on November (October in JP) 2009. The time of death? April 24, 2011.

Specs-wise, the PSP Go should have been an entirely decent version of the popular PlayStation Portable – it had a 3.8” 480×272 resolution screen and a sliding-form factor that was easier on the pocket than the original PSP and Slim varieties. Unfortunately, it did have some things that prevented people from buying it – and ultimately the things that accelerated its demise.

For one, the PSP Go was purely digital – all the games were original PSP titles, but they needed to be bought digitally on the PlayStation Network to enable access from the PSP Go. Originally, there were plans to give existing UMD game owners of the original PSP – of which there are millions – to port over their games to the digital platform. However, those plans didn’t materialize and thus previous PSP and game owners were alienated from the platform. Potential new owners and adopters of the PlayStation Portable brand would have been the target market for the PSP Go, but the prices weren’t attractive at all over the older PSP. It launched at a $250 pricetag versus a $199 PSP Slim which had a bigger screen, and UMD support. At the time, the PS3 was also at $300 so there was an issue with how much hardware you’re getting for the premium price.

Both those issues, combined with the fact that there was a perfectly decent, if even better, option of buying the original PSP Slim units, gave the indifferent shoulder to the PSP Go. Some retailers even refused to stock the portables because there was a limited appeal to them – or maybe it was because these retailers were afraid of losing customers to digitally distributed games. Either way, the PSP Go didn’t sell very well.

Fast forward to a few days ago, Sony Japan told AV Watch interviewers that the PSP Go is no longer being manufactured and shipped to concentrate on their NGP (PSP2). The rest of the stock for the portable will be sold until it runs out. (Source: Kotaku)

Update: Sony USA has commented to IGN that the production of the PSP Go for Northern America is still on-going. But there is no clear reason to say for how much longer.