“PSPgo Was A Test”

Sony says that the PSPgo was only released as an experiment to gauge the reception for a digital-only handheld console.

MCV asked SCEE President, Andrew House, weather the PSPgo sales where a success. His reply was:

“It was introduced in a mature life cycle to learn more about what the consumer wanted and we’ve definitely learnt a lot.

“Is that measured by success in sales? I don’t think it is,” he added.

“One of the reasons we launched PSPgo was to understand where that consumer behaviour was going. We were getting signals from consumers that this was the kind of device that they wanted. But we need to recognise that consumers like their packaged media library,” said House.

Well Mr House did you take your Vicodin this morning? I think not. The PSPgo hasn’t served as a fair test for the demand for a download-only console due to the fact that being a download-only console is not the only thing that makes people not want to buy it. The reason is that the PSP has been around for years and people have purchased many UMDs which they can play on their PSPs which they could re-download and play on the Go.

Also the digital releases are usually days behind the UMD release, if they are released at all, and with all its problems the PSPgo is not short of the PS3 cost wise. Previous versions of the PSP with the same features and UMD drives are much cheaper.

It’s safe to say that the PSP2 will not be a download-only console.

[Source:CVG]