PSP Go
So this was announced by Sony this year at E3, or rather leaked early, which led to it being known as the worst kept secret of E3. The new handheld will have a sliding screen mechanism like a mobile phone, with the buttons and control stuff inside. Here's some of the tech stuff and my opinion on the thing in general.
+Pros
Smaller Size-This thing is roughly 50% smaller and 40% lighter than the PSP. Thats good I guess.
+Bright screen-similar to the one in the PSP 3000, its good quality.
+Lots of PS1 games coming out, including the rather awesome Final Fantasy VII.
+Storage seems good. 16 Gb base, with a slot for memory card for more (up to 32 Gig total I think)
+Bluetooth for those who care, its good for files and transferring stuff like images, music etc
+Can play music and other non-gaming stuff like the PSP
-Cons
-Pricing. This is one thing that almost kills the thing outright. Damn well headshots it almost. $250. For a handheld that is so-so? [My opinion, it could be very appealing to some people] I mean, isnt that around the same as a Wii? Although I don't play my Wii much, I'd much rather have a Wii than a PSP Go. They got the PS3 prices wrong IMO, hopefully for $ony's sake *cough* they give us price drops quickly on this thing. Or I don't see it selling well.
-They are ditching the UMD hardware. That could be a good thing, as they are noisy and distracting. But they could have taken a leaf out of Nintendo's handheld stuff (bar the DSi). Having backcompatibility is a feature I really like on my consoles. If they do the digital distribution thing well, it could work. However it needs to be a million miles from what PAL gamers have at the moment on the PSP store. They have like a dozen games on there perhaps, maybe 1 or 2 updates every week and those arent even always new releases or all of the new releases. Plus they never seem to go down in price or on sale. The PSN store in Japan is the other extreme, that is done well.
I just dont like it that I wont be able to play my PSP games. If I pay a shitload for this thing, I need to then buy digital games off the store? What if I wanna go back and play some Disgaea or something? Nah, I cant on this system, which automatically means people won't trade in their PSPs to go towards this. Thanks Sony.
-Its effect on the PSP in the meantime. This is something indirect, and will affect the handheld market in the runup to the PSP Go release. Are third party games developers going to develop games for the PSP knowing that its more expensive to do so on the PSP than the DS and equally important, knowing that PSP software sales are so poor in comparison-largely due to piracy levels but also due to the poor quality of a lot of the games coming out. For me, it seems the DS has a much better game library in place. Plus, even though a lot of people have PSPs, DS sales have far outrun them. 101 million DS's have been sold worldwide, whereas around 51 million PSPs have been sold as of March 09. Lastly, games developers will see this PSP Go news and think "hmm, Sony are ditching the UMD format some time soon, I won't bother developing this game for the PSP system as it might not sell well." Then they might go to the DS and make their game for that system.
-No touch screen. I'm not bothered about this. They would have just been ripping it right off from the DS, and although its nice, its very common these days and really not necessary. Still, <3>
-Aesthetically, man its ugly...I really don't like it. Looks like a fatass mechanical Cartman from South Park or something. I dont like the way the bottom half stuff is sunk in..looks bad somehow.
-It has 1 analogue stick, something which is stupid because a lot of games could have benefited from 2 and loads of people were screaming out for 2 nubs on this piece of kit.
Some PSP articles and news;
http://www.gamepro.com/article/previews/210691/psp-go-e3-2009-impressions/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable_Go
http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/993/993402p1.html
Metroid Other M
Hope that isnt the real name, cos that is plain stupid XD...
I dunno, I cant really comment too much as I've missed out on most Metroid games, got the first 2 on the Gamecube, but not finished them. Still, they are well-liked, just like most Nintendo franchises.
Nice graphics for the Wii, I must say. Looks good. Think that'll do for my E3 coverage. *dies of exhaustion.*
