Sony Rolls Out PSP go Offerings
San Francisco plays host to SCEA's official PSP go launch event and we were there to check it out. Everything from Minis to GTA inside...
Published: September 23, 2009
A curious thing happens when you pick up the PSP go: you almost stop caring about all the things people have been whining about. The $250 price tag, the lack of an ability to convert one's existing UMD library into the pure digital format that the portable offers, the smaller screen... nearly all those things are washed away by the pure geek factor of scrolling through the games section of the XMB and seeing a dozen full games all just sitting there waiting for you to switch between.
There's the form factor, too. While we'd had the chance to play with the go at E3 for a couple of hours over the course of the show, it's a little easy to forget how solid it feels; the slide mechanism that reveals the d-pad, Start/Select/face buttons and the single analog nub feels every bit as solid (if not more) than a lot of the cell phones that sport the same semi-locking functionality. The smaller size does change how you hold the thing; it's more ergonomic and the shoulder buttons and analog nub both feel more natural to push.
Even still, there was a little bit of concern (we're putting that mildly, as some of the guys just flat-out hate the very idea of another $250 PSP). The biggest question was, of course, what would be hitting the PlayStation Store to complement when the unit hits in just a few weeks, and as Sony showcased, the suite of titles should be more than adequate to sate thought picking up a system for the first time -- and, for those that want to go digital without opting for a smaller unit with 16 gigs of built-in storage, all the stuff we played is of course still just as playable on the old PSP-3000. In fact, both the go and the 3000 were on hand, running the games like the happy little co-existent platforms that they are.
We originally thought about doing individual previews of every game on hand, but with so little time to see everything (it felt like there were dozens of games when in reality the actual number was closer to about two dozen), and with most of these games hitting in the next few weeks (we actually have review builds of some of the biggest ones already in-house), we'll instead do a simple little run-down of everything. The point of the event was clear: there are games, and lots of 'em, coming to whatever PSP you own, so we made sure we could get hands-on time with all the ones that mattered, from software to the new Minis initiative to full-blown games. Read on for our impressions...
There's the form factor, too. While we'd had the chance to play with the go at E3 for a couple of hours over the course of the show, it's a little easy to forget how solid it feels; the slide mechanism that reveals the d-pad, Start/Select/face buttons and the single analog nub feels every bit as solid (if not more) than a lot of the cell phones that sport the same semi-locking functionality. The smaller size does change how you hold the thing; it's more ergonomic and the shoulder buttons and analog nub both feel more natural to push.
Even still, there was a little bit of concern (we're putting that mildly, as some of the guys just flat-out hate the very idea of another $250 PSP). The biggest question was, of course, what would be hitting the PlayStation Store to complement when the unit hits in just a few weeks, and as Sony showcased, the suite of titles should be more than adequate to sate thought picking up a system for the first time -- and, for those that want to go digital without opting for a smaller unit with 16 gigs of built-in storage, all the stuff we played is of course still just as playable on the old PSP-3000. In fact, both the go and the 3000 were on hand, running the games like the happy little co-existent platforms that they are.
We originally thought about doing individual previews of every game on hand, but with so little time to see everything (it felt like there were dozens of games when in reality the actual number was closer to about two dozen), and with most of these games hitting in the next few weeks (we actually have review builds of some of the biggest ones already in-house), we'll instead do a simple little run-down of everything. The point of the event was clear: there are games, and lots of 'em, coming to whatever PSP you own, so we made sure we could get hands-on time with all the ones that mattered, from software to the new Minis initiative to full-blown games. Read on for our impressions...
