Its been nearly five years since Sony released the PSP, this years E3 saw the debut of the Sony PSP Go and it looks like Sony are trying to do away with trips down to your local video game shop.
The PSP Go has stubbed the UMD slot that its predecessor the PSP-3000 had; instead it will have an internal 16GB flash memory. Meaning that potential buyers will have to download games direct to the PSP Go. Sony has also shrunk the latest reincarnation of the PSP making it a lot more travel friendly.
Already people have been comparing the PSP Go to the iPod touch, as like previous versions of the PSP, gamers will be able to store music and other media. Well, that’s if you consider the iPod touch comparable to a handheld games console, personally I don’t think the iPod touch can even come close to a PSP or a Nintendo DS.
The Slide out design of the PSP Go makes it even more compact, although this has caused the controls to shrink accordingly. The one analogue stick (yes, still just one sadly) is located more towards the centre of the controls; this could be a fatal move by Sony, as seasoned PlayStation users generally prefer the Sony designed controllers. Rather than a more compact control lay out, similar to that of the Xbox 360.
The PSP Go will be available from October 1st this year, according to Sony most games will be available to download from then, Everything hitting the stores there after should also be available to download on the PlayStation Network.
The question that a lot of current PSP owners will want to ask themselves though, is why would they want to buy a new handheld that will not let them play their UMD’s, when it is already possible to download games on to a PSP 3000?
