Sony’s R&D department must have a giant banner hanging on every wall proclaiming the division’s slogan: “Wouldn’t it be crazy if…?” Some nights an engineer looks up from the dull glow of his CAD program and meekly asks if anyone would actually want or use what they’re creating. The supervisor walks sternly to the wall and points at the banner. Any further questioning just results in more insistent pointing. The engineer, reminded of the futility of his questioning, continues work on the PSP Go. Sony’s new handheld seems to exist for the most obstinate of reasons - just ‘cause. Now SCEA’s marketing team gets to launch a promotion campaign that will somehow not focus on the fact that the new system:

• Annoys retailers
• Confuses consumers
• Doesn’t offer any functionality meriting a purchase

How about this: "For the consumer with too much money..."

I almost understand the push behind the system’s development. Piracy has dragged the PSP down to impracticality from a developer standpoint. After all, why go to the trouble of making a game for a system (especially a game that can’t be easily ported to anything else) if the nation’s nerds are going to steal it as soon as they can? Switching over to an all-digital medium will, at least in the short term, preclude piracy for digital-only releases, since PSP piracy relies on exploits through a UMD game. Only fools and marketing executives believe that that’s a permanent solution though. Pirates will find a way to steal digitally distributed content, but that’s not the point. Merely making the content more convenient to purchase increases profitability – services like Steam and iTunes prove that.

I respect Sony’s attempt to turn the PSP platform into a profitable one for developers. What’s more, I’m glad someone finally made a dedicated gaming device that doesn’t rely on physical media – it’s been a while coming. That said, it confounds me that Sony had to sacrifice so much functionality to accomplish this. The PSP Go sends out a horrible message, one that almost nobody will buy: I cost a whole lot more and can’t do nearly as much. Yes, all future PSP titles will be downloadable, and even most old titles will be added, but neither the returning customer or the new will find either of these things welcoming. Current PSP owners won’t want to buy a more expensive system and digital copies of all the games they already own, and new customers won’t want to pay more for a system with an artificially limited library just because it’s a bit smaller.