UK PSPgo price watch - Out just 3 days, prices slashed!

subbie i think you are missing the point. I don't see any problems with DD. The problem is that they want it to become the ONLY way to distribute games.

While i don't like it, i think both types of distribution, should / can cohexist like it now happens with books, movies and music.

 

Hang on a minute. There's no reason at all why my DC games will stop working in 10 years and it's 100% certain that I'll be able to buy another system with ease if mine breaks. Mega CD and PC Engine CD games are coming up to 20 years old and they work just fine and it's also possible to buy working mint systems for the games. If the distributor for digital distributed games goes under or your machine breaks then kiss your games good bye. Even if you backed them up to a PC they'll be assigned to run on the system that downloaded them, right? Even if it doesn't break you'll end up with a paperweight that will only play what's installed on it if there's no DD.

All of these negative views on ONLY Digital Distribution (Which they want) are fully justified. Yes, there are good points for convenience sakes but that's it. Collectors are screwed, people who like to "OWN" physical media are screwed, people who enjoy browsing stores are screwed and finally those who enjoy searching for deals are screwed too. 1 distributor equals no competition so no need to discount. All valid reasons.

I've made my opinions heard so I'll leave it at that. No point in arguing. Don't like the negative views then don't read this thread.

Yakumo

 

Actually wrong in the case of the PSP. Games are encoded for the account file, not your HW. If I have my account active on two PSP units, I can move the game from one to the other and it would run on both. If my system breaks, I just activate my account on another PSP. I can also just call and bitch to sony about giving me back the license on the broken PSP unit (which they can and have done for people).

Do you also seriously think sony is just going to drop and disapear magically in the next 5 years? That they are just going to up and pull the plug tomorrow, never to deal with games ever again and will throw everything in the bin? :lol:

Aruging because you prefer physical media over DD is one thing, Its another thing to just cought up bs arguments to support your train of thought. Anybody can do that to support any idea.

Again also you go on no competition but look at Steam, they do weekly discounts. Fuck, Sony does discounts on PSN stuff quite freqently. Sony is partnered with amazon.com where you can purchase PSN games (amazon has this also with XBLA and quite often has done deals on the stuff). some PSP DD games are sold as pre-paid cards at retail. Just a week ago I saw one game for $15 in prepaid form but a shelf over the UMD version sits for $30. Here in canada, PSN is actualy CHEAPER then retail on many games. DD is a market like all other markets, If people wont buy, they will do what ever they can to entice sales.

If someone wants to own physical media, again i'm fine with that (I will still purchase some PSP software in UMD form for collection purposes). Yet that doesn't discount DD as a service. Not everybody is like us here at assembler. glad to keep a stack of old games & systems to keep replaying from time to time.

 

Don't be facetious. Obviously both the Dreamcast and PSPgo will be around in ten years. The real reason this whole thing is such a fucking joke is 1/ it costs more than a real PSP, 2/ it has less functionality, 3/ it has a smaller screen, 4/ you can't transfer your UMD games to it, and 5/ it has serious connectivity issues with the PS3 and the PSN store. Call that "hyperbole bullshit" if you like, but all I see are a bunch of negatives and a ludicrously hiked price point.

I'm not even making the "DD game industry is evil" point, I'm happy enough with XBLA and so on, but it does seem absolutely absurd that Sony want us to jump on their DD bandwagon with nothing but stick and no carrot. We are being given less for more money, and that is insulting.

 

Don't know if that would help.

A company doesn't need to disappear for a service to be discontinued. This happened a lot on the PS2, with companies (Sony included) shutting down online servers and DLC contents almost two years after the game was put avaiable. I suspect this will also happen with full games in the future. Nobody can guarantee that these online services will exist in 10, 20 years. It doesn't matter how long really.

Physical Media and Digital Distribution both have their markets, yes. It's when the first one was put aside, that most people that collects games started to complain (me included).

I understand DD, but it's not something for me. For additional content and stuff like that i can accept, but replacing in the full game... not really. Again, most people that play games don't actually collect games, so this is one more way to choose. That's fine, but i think they're not thinking about the people that kept this industry rising since the early 90's.

It's just my opinion though. I'm not pointing right and wrong here.

Steam it's a case on it's own. Valve decided to shutdown Won.net, and Steam came to replace it. At first it was just to keep piracy away and make easier to update games. It then evolved to what it is today. Plus on it's first months it was terrible. Slow, bugged. I remember people angry on message boards... Anyway, Valve was ahead of it's time when the store was launched and it became the main DD system for PC users.

As for price, of course DD games will be cheaper. They need to be cheaper. That's the whole point of it. There's no need to manufacture a plastic case, a manual and cover, no disc pressing, no need of people / transportation to distribute games in stores... Just files on a content server.


This discussion is going in too many directions. All this talk wasn't a directed rant to DD. It was directed to Sony using only DD as the way to get games on the PSPGo.

I still don't see why the PSPGo exists, since the original PSP does exactly the same thing and has the option for physical media or digital distribution.

 

I wasn't the one originally being facetious. I was merly duplicating their point. People keep acting like media based systems will last for ever but PSP-Go has a shelf life that will cause it to explode in a few years.

I agree with this point. It was overly priced and should have been $200 or $250 with a big name game like GT. Anybody who thinks it should cost less then a psp3000 (not saying you think this) is smoking crack.

Umm. No. The only functionality it lacks is a UMD drive. 1 FUCKING THING. The system does a tons more that other PSP dont do. I'll gladly list out it's improvements.

Oh come on now. The size difference is minor. This is not a GBA->GBA Micro size shift. It's fractions of an inch diagonally which is not a whole hell of a lot when held up next to each other. After a few mins of gaming it's a moot issue. Not to mention the PSP-Go has the best PSP screen to date (high color range of the 3k, no ghosting & none of the 3k's interlacing issues.

Sure but a lot of this came down to legal issues with 3rd party. I don't see MS letting you trade in your 360 games for the digital versions being sold on XBL.

Bull shit. I've been using mine for weeks with no connectivity issues with PS3 or PSN. Where is your info on this.

They are minor gripes that are being made into issues bigger then they really are. The one I agree with is the price but the rest are just taking nit picky issues and blowing them up 10x.

Where are you being given for less on the DD side? Sure some games are not on the store yet (and publishers are working to fix this, it takes time). Yet sony has given a lot to gamers though their store. Say you had 2 kids with PSPs. You can just purchase a game once and you can legally put in on both their systems. Retail you have to run out and buy two copies just for them to play together.

Oh well what about prices? PSN prices have been reasonable on quite a few games. Sure there are some that are higher then they should be, but those will adjust over time. Sony does sales quite often on PSN software. Hell From Software just released the english version of Armored Core 3 Portable on PSN last week for $15. If that was a retail game it would have been freaking $30-$40. Hell in japan it's 4,000Y at retail.

:katamari:

 

?

Game servers being shut down is no suprize really. Those are servers with only a single purpose. To run connection list servers for the game. A majority of the time, when servers are shut down is due to low numbers of people still playing. Yet there are quite a few games where servers are still running because people are still playing online. PSP is no exception, a few games have already had their servers shut down. Yet games like Socom & killzone still have very active online communities and still have their multiplayer servers active.

PSN is alot more then a simple single game server. It's a rather large service that is being built up to be around for quite some time. I can tell you 100% PSN will be around for PSP2 & PS4 and beyond. Hell look at XBL, there are XBOX 1 games that are still playable online thanks to them being apart of XBL service and not just single game servers.

Thats fine and sony is not ditching physical media on the PSP yet for people like you. Yet that does not mean the PSP-Go should not exsist. Sony is not forcing everybody onto the PSP-Go.

I have to disagree with you on who keeps the industry rising. Yet that is for another discussion.

Yep and PSN when it first started was a piece of **** as well. It's come a long ways since then.

Yup, just quoting this to not be missing text.

Yes I agree the discussion is all over the place. This is kind of why I jumped into it now. If the PSP-Go is not for someone then thats fine. Sony is not forcing anybody onto the Go. It's here to capture a market that likes things small & more digital friendly. The PSP-Go is just that. At the same time sony is still keeping psp3k on the market and has plans to even revise the hardware to offer more features for those who prefer physical media. Yet people need to stop acting like the PSP-Go is the spawn of satan here to rape their mother and their dog.

As for why digital only, there are a few reasons for it. 1st, 3rd party is not just going to jump on with out a fire being lit under their ass. Sony has been offering digtal PSP games for a while now but 3rd party has been dragging their feet to get on board. the PSP-Go has forced them to speed things up. The second reason is to answer to a section of the expanding market that wants things smaller, more portable & digital friendly. PSP-Go is much much smaller then a PSP 2k. You're looking at a device that is roughly the size of a iPhone. I do actually have friends/coworkers who have gotten one and love it and love not having to carry around a bunch of UMDs in a bag with them when they want to take their PSP with them. I personally love mine and at one time I had a PSP collection larget then probably most on this forum. Yet even though I love mine I still see the need for the older model and games on UMD. I still have plans to pick up some games on UMD that I wish to collect but there is a large chunk of PSP games I play just to play and don't have a need to really keep them sitting around in a box or on a shelf.

If someone prefers to keep physical media, that is fully fine with me and I support that. Yet that doesn't mean one should rail on the PSP-Go for silly/false reasons.

 

It lacks the UMD drive, ergo it should be less expensive. QED.

Tell you what, I'll sell you a car. It's a fantastic drive, but it's lacking an engine, and you can't fit one either... what do you mean, you don't want to pay extra? It's only missing 1 FUCKING THING!

And I should give a fuck why? The point is that if I buy a PSPGo I will need to re-purchase any game I want to play on it, and that's an absolute crock of shit whichever way you spin it.

You also don't see Microsoft selling 360s without DVD drives. Funny, that.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/10/psp-go-launch-has-become-a-nightmare-for-gamers-sony.ars

I'm sure that's all just anti-Sony propaganda. It's an internet-wide conspiracy!

You know, some might say that the lack of a physical component means that you're getting less. Crazy, right?

 

Yet contains 16GB flash, Bluetooth reciver & a bunch of other hw internal changes that require a seperate production line. Ergo, you are being stupid.

Oh for the love of god man, The Go does not lack the CPU which would be the fucking engine in this analogy. Come on.

And the PSP-Go then is not for you then. I personally didn't go and buy a backlog of my old PSP games nor did I ditch my PSP2k. Going forward I've been buying games digital since they actually are cheaper for me here in canada then retail.

Even if they did, you still wouldn't see them offering you a trade in. :lol:

:banghead: That is a problem relating to sony's method of security the game properly to an account. Yes it is a problem but it would be a problem if it involved a PSP3k. The system did not magically come with a coupon to download 3 free games. You had to do a special sign in process with a PSP1k/2k/3k with a UK game and a PSP-Go. At least sony europe tried and I guess shame on them for trying to keep it free of exploits (as there were a lot of people in the USA trying to find ways to exploit this for 3 free games).
:noooo:

Then they are free to buy the PSP3k. Yet if we ask apple what they think about the iPhone and the App store, i'm pretty sure they would say physical media can go fuck it self with a metal bat. The market seems to have no issue supporting Apple and the App Store. Why shouldn't sony try to get into the market. I mean god, People were bitching about the PSP3k not supporting custom firmware to let them run their games ripped to the memory stick. Crazy huh?

 

Disappointing that you resort to ad hominem. Anyway, come on - none of those things matter anything like as much as the UMD drive.

Except that the PSP3k could play the games in the first place!

Fuck it. If the fact that it's missing the drive and you can't play previously bought PSP games on it doesn't deter you, nothing will. Hell, they should've priced it at $5000, evidently some people will buy it regardless of how daft a proposition it is.

Yeah, they tried their best, and in the end, that's all that counts... Jesus wept...

Take a step back and ask yourself why you're making excuses for a corporation that's just charged you more for a half-featured PSP than you'd pay for a full PS3.

Don't try and twist my argument into a position that supports piracy, you know full well where I stand on that.

 

This the point where we'll always disagree.

The PSPGo is just the PSP without the UMD drive. If they wanted to make a product for people thinking on portability, why not a PSP with a 32GB Memory Stick?

No... instead, they redesigned the product, killing the other option for media (UMD), change the memory expansion (Memory Stick to M2) and of course, no compatibility with previous PSP acessories.

Why they even bothered to spend money on R&D, when all they need was to create a bundle with a big size Memory Stick?

And while Sony is not forcing anyone to buy the PSPGo, they are obviously testing the market. If it's more profitable for them that way, this is the way they'll go on.

Anyway, even if they wanted to release a "premium" version of the system, why not add a touch screen? More online function?

Well, for me the iPhone is just a overhyped product. While it does have great functions, most people buy it because it's "cool". That's just a damn cellphone, with extra features (some very good by the way).

Still, iPhone's market is for people with "gadgets" on their mind, while the main market for the Go is games.

If Sony wanted to join that market, why not making a cellphone with PSN Store support? That would be interesting, since it would attract more people to the PS line of products.

 

The whole reason for the PSPGo is to give gamers an option for something different. More options are always a good thing. The price thing I agree on, but I don't get all the hate for the system either. As subbie says, the choice is there for you, choose however you want.

 

Aside from the standard grips people have about the PSPGo, I don't like it because you can't freely code/write applications for it. At least with the older PSP thats been unlocked you can do it, but on the new ones? Nothing.

 

Yes, but Sony *promised* a UMD -> DD trade in program earlier this year.

Microsoft never made such a promise when introducing DD.

-hl718

 

Rawr.

 

I thought they said that they were trying to come up with a solution, not a promise of there being one.

 

Yeah, but I understand that they've since said that there will be no solution. The best you get is three "free" downloads with the system where you can download a few games you already had on UMD, or three new games.

Suffice to say, the PSP Go doesn't appeal to me. Higher price, fewer features.

 

^^
This sounds more like the attitude of a gamer than a collector.

That's fine, you are what you are, but when I buy something I want to own it FOREVER, whether I'm going to play it or not. I've bought thousands and thousands of dollars worth of shit that I never intend to play, just because I derive more pleasure from owning it than I ever would from playing it.

The problem with Digital Distribution is that we're no longer going to own any of the software. We're effectively going to rent it, and the service contracts will reflect this. We will never BUY games again, which is very uncool for those of us who like to amass stuff.


Now, I recognize that I'm in a tiny minority and my opinion, thus, doesn't really matter. I'm not "hating on" the PSP-Go, but I recognize that the success of it and other DD platforms would be bad for me and thus I hope they fail miserably (but they probably won't).

 

I like to amass stuff, but then have a big trade in or sell off bits every now and again.

The whole idea of only having digital distribution does devalue and make redundant collecting of new software if a physical media version does not exist, which for me is the reason why I collect games.

I can see that DD would appeal more to the mass market, the ease of buying games, not having the problem of not being able to buy the game on the day of release and more.

But it isn't for me.