Sony: PSP Go 'experiment' revealed consumers' love of physical media

nah I'm pretty sure the PSP Go 'experiment' showed that consumers don't like paying for over priced old tech in new packaging.

We dont caaaare, your an idiot..

it could have been successful if they released it at a fair price, they didn't even put half the games on the PS Store. so it's hard to say whether or not this is accurate.

Experiment???

Damn Sony, That's a lot money wasted then, huh???

Oh well!

Steam is a good example of how you do digital distribution right.

The PSP Go was a good example of how not to do digital distribution.

I understand what they are looking at, and believe me I do love physical media, but they seem to be looking over the price point of the Go over the regular psp, and the bundle offers that came with the Go in comparison to the 3000. I bought my Go first day and I still love it to date, but it came with a voucher for a demo of Rock Band psp, when most 3000 bundles are $50 cheaper and come with a full movie and game. I love Sony to no extent, but I do feel like the Go has gotten no such love to American consumers.

I thoroughly believe that digital distribution is what the future is going to come to, but with such a high price on a digital only console it only makes sense why someone would buy a 3000 with nearly the same features for cheaper. And for those of you who would criticize me for saying "nearly the same features," the Go does have more features than the 3000, and I stand by that.

I leave this in saying, when you are viewing this in Sony's "experiment" then they set themselves up to have a failed experiment. The Go is an amazing platform, but charging more for a console that is overall packaged with less, and didn't hold up to the promised "for every physical game release there will also be a digital release" scheme then this was a doomed experiment from the begging. I love you Sony, but you need to show love for your digital distribution Guinea Pigs instead of watching them run through a maze and recording data.

later from apple "the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad all reveal the consumers hate for physical media"

See Sony, your argument that people love physical media, while true for some people, is completely lost on me. I present to you Exhibit A. Exhibit A is my Steam account with close to 100 games tied to it. I actually prefer the digital versions of these games, or physical versions I can register through Steam, because if I run into the unfortunate situation of rendering my physical copy of a game unplayable, I can still play the digital version of the game. There's no discs to lose, and there's no risk of scratching the discs as well.

Sony, maybe if you put a bit of thought into your product before you launched it, it might have been received better. Make ALL games available for download. Make the available on DAY ONE. Knock the price down a tad, due to the fact that there's no physical media to produce. Make the Go itself cheaper. Offer users upgrading from the older model PSP's the ability to download copies of their physical games. Is it really that difficult?

That was one expensive experiment.

This was the WORST experiment EVER.

First, consumers LOVES digital media, Steam and iPhone proves that. The problem is, you CAN'T releasy a freaking expensive handheld that costs more than a Wii, then not release every game there is for that platform and not release games on the same that as the physical one.

Sony will now make the next handheld console as a biased physical media format because of this, and it'll fail.

You can't make something almost $100 more than it's equivalent, and then say that physical media is the only reason it wasn't a success.

And actually, physical media is nice, but UMD's are not. Way too big and bulky for a portable console, they can get scratched despite the plastic shields, and that spinning drive can't be good for battery life. If you're going to sell physical games put them on some sort of flash memory.

Score one for the good guys!!!

OMG I don't know if this has anything to do with this article, but I want PSP movies back. The only reason they didn't sell was because they were expensive and there weren't that many good movies on psp. Release UMD Movies again Sony! I have a psp 2000 and I dont want to buy Juno from the PS store for $15 then waste a gig and a half to put it on my PSP! just release better movies on UMD with a cheaper price and it will sell! I would buy "The Dark Knight", "Saving Private Ryan", and "The Godfather" movies if released on psp. Also Physical media is better in my opinion because it's nice to know I have LBP on UMD and still have a 1.3 gigs on my memory stick for other things i may want to put on my psp.OK, so recap: Release more, and better UMD movies for psp at a reasonable price (Skip special features, if they want to add special features for movies,add them, but I think that not having special features will not be a deal breaker)(Oh also, if theres 2 versions of the film, "rated" and "unrated", release the "unrated on psp. Not like Pineapple Express. They released the theatrical version of it, when the unrated version is better), and Physical Media is better. Wow I wrote alot LOL

My issue with it, it only had 16GB. Which is harder to do:

1. Deleting a game to make room for another one and playing "swap files" on your PC.

2. Swapping out a disc when you want to play a different game.

Foresight told me the PSP Go would be nothing but a major pain, so I ignored it.

Not love of physical media. I abhor the UMD disc as a form of physical media. No, it's more about...

A) Reasonable pricing (retail prices drop lower than digital prices to the extreme, and much more quickly.

B) My physical UMD serves as a great backup when I dump the image to a memory stick to save on battery life, load times, and for convenience (having my whole catalog with me at once is a great thing).

That is exactly what I was saying when it was announced.....something to test the waters as for the PSP2......something tells me they will still try to force downloads heavy on the PSP2, but it won't be ONLY downloadable titles

No, people just didn't want to re-buy all of their games for a product they already have.

If the PSP Go was the same price as the a regular PSP, if I was able to transfer all of my currently owned PSP games to digital files (at no additional cost) and if the games cost the same as they do in retail, I would have upgraded to the Go, no doubt, and so would many other PSP owners (not including the Pirates out there).

The Go could have taken it off, but Sony didn't do their homework.
Games over priced.
Not released when they should be.
Machine over priced.
Machine pointless, when you consider that the standard version can do everything it can do and more

I guess there will never be an official UMD to Digital release converter/conversion process. Even if it could've been made by Datel or something, and officially allowed by Sony...how great would that have been! Every Extend Extra and Lumines (and Crisis Core and so on)!

But no- =^\ Thanks Sony for officially...implying, at the very least, that my PSP Go will not be supported.

So this is their way of saying "we screwed up"?

Call it what it is a failed attempt @ competing with apple digital media phenomenon aka iPhone/iPod touch

I don't love physical media, I just hate hand cramps. The PSP Go is the worst designed portable ever from an ergonomics view-point.

Anyway I believe the best solution to the physical media issue are these nice little things call memory cards. Specifically SDHC and SDXC. They could sell games both digitally and on read-only SD cards and they could even charge a slight premium for the physical media versions. Just design a portable with a decent amount of internal storage and a SDXC slot or two even. No more big, slow, and bulky optical drives but consumers still get to buy physical copies if they are so inclined.

Of course before I buy it they have to work on the above mentioned ergonomics. Of course I just want something like an Xbox 360 controller with an iPhone 4.0 screen built into it.

I'm not a grammar nazi, but there is nothing better than when one someone says "YOUR an idiot"

It also confirmed that consumers won't pay $250 for a device they can essentially get for $199 or less.

Now the only question is if Apple will learn from this lesson, or continue down the suicidal path of digital distribution.

Does SONY not know how to conduct a survey?