PSP Go

[Rolf N]

Unit hardware sales are obviously not high enough, and the margin is obviously not high enough, to justify selling a $250 unit that no one will buy any packaged software for, ever. These things are obvious by simply looking at what retailers do.

I thought it was a small minority of retailers engaging in this PSP Go boycott. I agree that it's a fine method to look at actual retailer reactions if you don't trust forum logic, but I can't agree at all with your reading.

Gamestop and Walmart will sell the PSP Go. That's the two biggest AFAIK, in their respective segments. Gamestop, with their focus on used games, has the most reason to be irritated with the PSP Go's existance, and yet even they don't boycott it.

 

[obonicus]

No, that's not a "major disconnect." Obviously, PSP software sales are good enough to justify the 15 or so titles they keep on the shelf.

But even new game sales have tiny margins. The PSP is heavily pirated, which hurts even used game sales. These games sell terribly. You say that these games sell well enough, I say these are the least-worse-selling games and Sony 'obviously' offers retailers an incentive to keep the system in view. Given the SCEA-SoA meeting briefing leaked this week, I personally believe they'd go very far to try and make Gamestop happy.

They are obviously not good enough to justify having a dedicated case. Unit hardware sales are obviously not high enough, and the margin is obviously not high enough, to justify selling a $250 unit that no one will buy any packaged software for, ever. These things are obvious by simply looking at what retailers do.

Which is you agreeing with me, apparently. Even though they may actually make money off the PSP Go!, they are more interested in not carrying it because DD isn't in their best interest. I believe that they'd do it even if the Go! were to sell gangbusters, which it probably won't, not at 250EUR.

Wal-Mart is the USA's biggest CD retailer. It also sells iPods. The difference? iPods sell by the million. The PSP sells by the thousand.

Besides the farcical hyperbole, DD Music and DD games are a vastly different market. Not only were MP3s well-established alternatives by the time the iPod showed up, but Walmart actually has its own MP3 download store. MP3s are 'open'. How many PSN DD games will Walmart, or any other retailer be able to sell directly? I'm not even sure why you're bringing up Walmart to begin with, they're carrying the Go! An adoption of DD may hurt their used game initiative, but I doubt they're worried.

The major logical disconnects are not in what retailers are doing; they're in your head. Retailers are in general pretty smart about retail; that's why they make money doing it.

Of course they're smart about retail! They're so smart that they want their model of retail to stick around forever. You can't seem to process the clear conflict of interests there. I don't even blame retail, I'm just saying that the excuses they give for not carrying the Go! are BS.

 

[specwarGP2]

I thought it was a small minority of retailers engaging in this PSP Go boycott. I agree that it's a fine method to look at actual retailer reactions if you don't trust forum logic, but I can't agree at all with your reading.

Gamestop and Walmart will sell the PSP Go. That's the two biggest AFAIK, in their respective segments. Gamestop, with their focus on used games, has the most reason to be irritated with the PSP Go's existance, and yet even they don't boycott it.

Because it would be retarded for them to not sell PSP Go. That's like throwing away money. All this shelf space talk is nonsense IMO. Its not like these things take up a ton of space, and places like Gamestop don't even display them on shelves anyway. Just a few empty boxes and all stock in a storeroom. Go is smaller than OG PSP and that box wasnt that big to start with either.

 

[patsu]

http://kotaku.com/5367207/sony-nixes-plans-for-umd-conversion-program-for-pspgo

Playstation Portable owners will not be able to transfer the disc-based UMD games they own to a PSPgo when the sleek new digital-only system launches next week, Sony officials told Kotaku today.

"We were evaluating a UMD conversion program, but due to legal and technical reasons we will not be offering the program at this time," a Sony Computer Entertainment of America spokesman told Kotaku.

 

[Rotmm]

patsu, did you really expect anything other than that outcome. It was pretty obvious with the evations since E3 that there wasn't going to be any kind of conversion program and that various Sony reps who said "We're looking into it, maybe this, maybe that" were just stonewalling in an attempt to placate the press.

Did anyone really think that Sony were going to spend millions and millions installing "conversion kiosks" into retail units all around the world? Where neither they nor the retail outlet would be in a position to benefit financially? Or that they would again spend millions setting up various "mail-in" centres around the world to then be provided with codes to re-download the software? In fact, did anyone actually believe that all released PSP games will actually be available in download form?

I never believed it and I'm sure you never believed it. Sony clearly never believed it, though it would have been nice of them to state it up-front.

 

[patsu]

Who ? Me ? Didn't think of buying a PSPGo. I love my PSP-1000. Posted that article for social services. ^_^

If it's a Playstation phone, then I may consider.

EDIT: I think I mentioned months ago (before PSPGo announcement) that Sony should not rev the hardware without a major leap. Focus on innovative software and PSN first. The PSP is under-utilized by Sony.

 

[obonicus]

I don't think it'd take a retail kiosk, but it would take getting all PSP titles up on PSN, and that's pretty far from happening. They could have used a mail in program, for instance.

 

[patsu]

SCEE is offering 3 free games with PSPGo:
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/09/27/would-three-free-games-convince-you-to-upgrade-to-pspgo/

The catch is that you need to register your PSPgo on PSN, then log in to the network with your old PSP while there’s a UMD in its drive. This allows you to download a special PSPgo theme and gives you a voucher that will allow you to download your three free titles. For people in Europe, this essentially means four free games, since SCEE are offering Gran Turismo PSP free with every PSPgo (while SCEA is bundling GT PSP with PSP-3000) for early adopters.

 

[obonicus]

And SCEA's offering squat.

 

[thambos]

i was considering getting a PSP Go since i never had a PSP. but when i looked at pics of it next to the 3000 the screen looks about 25% smaller. combined w/ the higher price and the lack of UMD i might just wait for the 4000 if it ever comes. only reason i didnt get a 3000 was i had read the screen had pixel gap lines.

are there any literature that has the screen dimensions?

 

[holsty101]

Post #37 has the dimensions, Go screen is .5" smaller, 3.8" vs 4.3" from the other models.

 

[Rolf N]

i was considering getting a PSP Go since i never had a PSP. but when i looked at pics of it next to the 3000 the screen looks about 25% smaller. combined w/ the higher price and the lack of UMD i might just wait for the 4000 if it ever comes. only reason i didnt get a 3000 was i had read the screen had pixel gap lines.

The PSP 3000 screen is just fine.

It's not about pixel gaps btw but about the interlaced screen updates. Because the 3k screen has a much faster response than the 2k screen, this can become visible in certain situations. The whole thing is blown way out of proportion. On the plus side, there's no more ghosting.

 

[Sigfried1977]

^not to mention it sports a far more vibrant color palette as well.
Aside from the interlace issues the PSP 3000 screen totally destroys both the screens of my DS Lite and my Iphone 3G: Much deeper black levels, much more vibrant and warmer colors, way better pixel response times and a far greater viewing angle (this can be especially annoying with the iphone when games involve the use of the tilt sensors)

 

[thambos]

The PSP 3000 screen is just fine.

It's not about pixel gaps btw but about the interlaced screen updates. Because the 3k screen has a much faster response than the 2k screen, this can become visible in certain situations. The whole thing is blown way out of proportion. On the plus side, there's no more ghosting.

why would it be displaying interlaced, it's a LCD isn't it?

How would a faster response time make interlacing more visible, wouldn't it make it less visible?

I sure hope they make a 4000 now, because i just read that you cant move UMDs onto the PSPGo; which kills any chance of getting games on sale. I don't particularly like paying full retail for games unless it's something i want on day 1. I realize PSN has had some sales, but they're few & far between and only on a couple games. whereas you can find lots of different games on sale every week in stores. for example Power Stone Collection is $12.74 on amazon and $20 on PSN. GT5 Prologue is $25.49 on amazon and $30 on PSN. etc..

 

[Rolf N]

why would it be displaying interlaced, it's a LCD isn't it?

I don't know why, maybe it's a bandwidth/power consumption thing. The DS does it the same way.

How would a faster response time make interlacing more visible, wouldn't it make it less visible?

The screen is quicker to display the most recent data. If the odd lines are updated before the even lines in a fast animation, you can briefly see an overlap of two frames. If the screen were slower (than the refresh interval), the artifact would be hidden under the ghosting. If the ghost of the even lines is still visible when the odd lines fall into place, the full frame still fits together visually. Of course then you have to deal with full-screen motion trail artifacts. Some people think this is preferable to what the PSP 3k screen offers. I certainly don't.

 

[Arwin]

Crap, it really works and it's already in there ... You can hook up your DualShock 3 through bluetooth and play your games using it. I guessed they were seriously considering it when they had that weird feature for Resistance Retribution on PSP, but now it's pretty much confirmed!

http://www.viddler.com/explore/Joystiq/videos/2122/0.758

Now with this, the save state feature, and being able to download three full games if I log in with my old PSP and a UMD game in there, the 16GB internal memory, the beautiful screen, and GTSP, it's becoming harder and harder to resist this thing. I still hate that it uses different cables, but if I find one in media markt tomorrow evening, I may not be able to resist it.

 

[DrJay24]

I wish all the deals Arwin mentioned were in NA too, as it is now it is not even tempting. My PSP-2000 would only sell for like $125.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I don't know why, maybe it's a bandwidth/power consumption thing. The DS does it the same way.
The screen is quicker to display the most recent data. If the odd lines are updated before the even lines in a fast animation, you can briefly see an overlap of two frames. If the screen were slower (than the refresh interval), the artifact would be hidden under the ghosting. If the ghost of the even lines is still visible when the odd lines fall into place, the full frame still fits together visually. Of course then you have to deal with full-screen motion trail artifacts. Some people think this is preferable to what the PSP 3k screen offers. I certainly don't.

I might have misunderstood the information entirely (admittely I'm not all that clued up on these things) however I thought it was said that the PSP3k screen "issues" were really a result of the change in orientation of the screen's sub-pixel structure. In that for the PSP3k the effective sub-pixels are laid out vertically as opposed to horizontally in the PSP2k (or it may be the other way around), and so, giving the appearance of interlacing lines in certain circumstances.

I may be badly wrong though

 

[Npl]

I might have misunderstood the information entirely (admittely I'm not all that clued up on these things) however I thought it was said that the PSP3k screen "issues" were really a result of the change in orientation of the screen's sub-pixel structure. In that for the PSP3k the effective sub-pixels are laid out vertically as opposed to horizontally in the PSP2k (or it may be the other way around), and so, giving the appearance of interlacing lines in certain circumstances.

I may be badly wrong though

Yep, "horizontal" pixels alone never would give you the artifacts the games have on the PSP3000.Like this.

Clearly the screen is updated interlaced.

 

[patsu]

PSP Firmware Update (v6.10) and PSPGo

It's mainly for PSPGo but 2 out of 3 features can be used with regular PSP:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/09/psp-firmware-update-v6-10/

* SensMe - Auto-classify imported music

* Media Go Enhancements - Improved integration with PS Store

* Tethering - Allow PSPGo to go online via Bluetooth to your cellphone

I have no idea why Sony didn't mention that last feature before. I think it's awesome, although it can drain the cellphone battery after extended use. ^_^

The PSPGo launch seems rather patchy to me. Anyway, link has video demoes on said enhancements.

EDIT:

Tomorrow's PSN content update is freaking long due to new PSP software:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/01/psn-thursday-all-systems-are-psp-go-for-a-massive-update/