Go or no go?

Last month I spent a little time discussing the PSP Go. Of course, this was before it was officially announced, so everything was based on speculation. It turns out that most of the rumors were true: The PSP Go will have a sliding screen, built-in storage, and no UMD drive. This was all revealed during Sony's E3 press conference, along with one other detail - the price. There was certainly a collective dropping of jaws when the number 249 appeared on that giant screen.

So yeah, $249 for a PSP Go. This seems to be the main complaint people have had about the system, but is this a fair complaint? After all, we recently saw the DSi release for $40 more than the DS Lite, so it makes sense that we would have to pay extra for the new PSP as well, right?

Traditionally, consoles drop in price over time, as manufacturing costs are reduced. Then companies started to look at Apple's iPod business model, where the cost stays the same year after year, but the product itself is improved. This was clearly the inspiration for Sony and Nintendo, who both have consoles on the market that are selling for the same or more than their launch price, despite being half a decade old. I've already talked about the changes to the DSi, to determine if it's worth the extra $40 over a DS Lite, but what about the PSP Go? Have they added enough functionality to warrant an $80 price hike?

Well, first of all, lets look at all they added to the DSi. Granted, many of these features won't appeal to the majority of people (not for more than five minutes, anyway), but they certainly increased the cost of the system to make. Excluding the changes in form factor (because a new chassis should never cost you extra), the DSi added two cameras, a music player, an SD card slot (to store games from the brand new DSi Ware store), and a web browser, along with a more powerful CPU, 12 extra MB of RAM, and improved Wi-Fi support.

And as for the PSP Go, well, here's what Sony have to say about it on the official site: "Introducing the smallest and mightiest PSP system yet. Download rich, immersive digital gaming or the best movies and TV shows saved directly to the ample 16GB hard drive. Browse the incredibly deep lineup of PSP gaming and movie content on the PlayStation Network. Use built-in Bluetooth support to connect a wireless headset and utilize Skype to talk with friends. But best of all, show off your content via the ultra-crisp 3.8 inch LCD screen on the most portable PSP system yet."

Okay, so as far as downloading games and movies goes, we can already do that on our existing PSPs. They have added 16GB of built-in storage (which I highly doubt is a hard drive, as they describe it), but considering how cheap flash memory is these days, I doubt this cost them much. One thing I'm happy about is the Bluetooth, but when they say "Use built-in Bluetooth support to connect a wireless headset", I really hope they mean "to connect to a wireless headset and stereo headphones." Since the PSP is also a music and movie player, this is almost a necessity if they wish to stay cutting edge, and no, wireless headset and headphone support aren't the same thing.

And as for the rest, it's all stuff we can do on our existing PSPs: Skype, music, movies, web browser; all functions of the system for quite some time. They didn't add anything like a camera, touchscreen, GPS, or 3G support, any of which could be used to justify the increase in cost.

There's also something else we haven't factored in yet: The stuff they removed. The system no longer plays UMDs, so none of your existing games will work on it. There has been talk of some kind of UMD trade-in program, but Sony have said nothing official. Also gone is the removable battery, so we better hope the one it ships with lasts for a long time. Finally, they've switched the power and data transfer plugs with a single input, which is admittedly better, but it means that none of your existing accessories will work with the system either. Buy a PSP Go and you're pretty much starting from scratch.

It's a shame, you know. I really like the idea of having a smaller, lighter PSP, but can't imagine paying as much as I did for the same console back in 2005. If they had added a bunch of new features then maybe it would be worth it, but the Bluetooth support and built-in memory alone just aren't enough. In fact, it seems like they took out almost as much as they put in!

So is the PSP Go worth the extra $80 over the cost of an existing system? At this point, it certainly doesn't seem like it. I know I wasn't exactly sold on the DSi before it launched either, but my issue wasn't with the price; it was with the lack of information about what we could do with the new features. In this case, though, there really are no new features, just a smaller shell, so sorry, Sony - no sale. Either bring down that cost by $100 or add in a bunch of new stuff, and maybe we'll talk. Until then, I think I'll just stick with my perfectly acceptable launch PSP, which I can pull out once or twice a year when something good is actually released for it!