The PSPgo "was a complete flop"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 21 April, 2011

Lessons will make NGP "a better system".

It's official: the PSPgo, Sony's UMD-less portable handheld, is no more.

Only a year-and-a-half after launch, Sony has ceased production of the device to "concentrate on NGP", due out at the end of the year.

But why did it flop?

"It was a flop because it wasn't sufficiently differentiated from the PSP-3000 to justify the much higher price," Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told Eurogamer.

"There's not a lot to say about PSPgo. The feature set was cool, but not cool enough. The download-only mechanism was not as attractive as they thought it would be. The form factor, while nice, wasn't worth an extra $80."

The PSPgo endured constant criticism from some quarters for its lack of a UMD drive and perceived high cost.

In September 2009 Holland's largest specialised retail outlet, Nedgame, decided not to sell the PSPgo. UK shops did not hold back, either.

It was this tumultuous relationship that, Nicholas Lovell of GAMESbrief believes, was the PSPgo's biggest problem.

"The death of the PSPgo highlights the problems faced by hardware manufacturers in their relationship with retail," he said. "Sony needs retailers to sell its hardware; it also knows that the future of software is downloadable. In a world of downloadable software, physical retailers are vastly less important, and this terrifies them.

"So Sony tried to launch a product that needed retail support to shift units, then cut them out of the value chain by selling games directly to the consumer. The retailers rebelled."

In June last year Sony announced a new PSPgo £225 deal whereby anyone buying the handheld would be given 10 free games.

It was seen as an effort to reverse the handheld's flagging fortunes. Obviously, it didn't work.

Perhaps unluckily for Sony, the launch of the PSPgo coincided with the meteoric rise of smartphones as popular portable gaming machines.

This, experts point out, also contributed to its downfall.

"The demise of PSPgo is not a surprise, in our view, as device sales were weak," explained Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian.

"We think price was one factor, but more important the download only distribution model for PSP games never resonated well with core gamers. Ironically, the launch of go also coincided with the steep ramp in smartphones, which are now the most popular gaming platforms 'on the go'."

While many will view the PSPgo as an expensive failure, Sony will take plenty of positives from the experience.

Indeed, some believe it was an experiment in digital distribution ahead of the NGP. All NGP games will be sold digitally as downloads - only some as physical products in shops.

"PSPgo was a failure, but iterative failure is a necessary step in progress toward innovation," offered M2 Research senior analyst Billy Pidgeon.

"PSPgo could have contributed very helpful feedback to Sony's dedicated handheld strategy as an open beta marketplace test in the evolution of game distribution from a physical media format to digital media format. NGP may well be a better system due to lessons Sony learned with PSPgo."

And for EEDAR's Jesse Divnich, when history casts judgement on the PSPgo, it may do so favourably.

"For the PSPgo, I do agree with most of the industry that is was a complete flop. The PSPgo was simply ahead of its time, which is a common problem for Sony. We will all look back 10 years from now and peg the PSPgo as being the first platform to go 100 per cent digital. While not successful, it did demonstrate the idea of a pure digital environment, which we all can agree will one day occur."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (62) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rizo #1 1 year ago

    Epic Fail

  • MasonMk #2 1 year ago

    Shame, but im still playing my go often.

  • jonbwfc #3 1 year ago

    It was a flop because you charged far too much for it, and even more far too much for digital download games on PSN. You blithering idiots.

    Neither of those issues will be fixed by new hardware, so expect the NGP to struggle as well unless Sony get their heads out of their arses.
    Edited by jonbwfc at 21/04/11 @ 10:15

  • StolenGlory #4 1 year ago

    Don't just make it better, make it release earlier too.

  • NorUraeus #5 1 year ago

    Will be interesting to see how the platform holders deal with the retail backlash against going digital. It seems the policy for the Ps3 and the Xbox360 is to make the pricing for digital games quite a bit higher than buying at retail, probably to try to keep retail from turning against them.

  • Midgar777 #6 1 year ago

    Bought for £230 sold months later for £60 trade in value

    ./sickinmouth

  • jonsaan #7 1 year ago

    It's such a shame. Cutting pube ridden, stinky, rip off retailers out of the equation is exactly what is required. However the pure fact of the matter is that the 3000 is a much better option. The GO removed the psp's strongest feature. The glorious screen.
    Edited by jonsaan at 21/04/11 @ 10:20

  • liveinabin #8 1 year ago

    Um.. The reason it flopped was the prohibitive price of, even old, games.
    Sony, as always, make great hardware but screw it all up with the service side.
    When will Sony (and Nintendo for that matter) figure out that iOS is the competition - and you can get really great, deep titles there for less than $10.

    Hope they wake up for the NGP because I love the device. Not hopeful though.

  • coolbritannia #9 1 year ago

    Fail since before it was released. WTF were Sony thinking!?

  • MaFlippinHeadHurts #10 1 year ago

    I still can’t believe what a disaster this was and how Sony couldn’t see it coming

    I’d get sacked from my job if I dropped a clanger like this!

  • NotSoSlim #11 1 year ago

    Disaster that didn't cost them anything as it was sold at a profit. Clearly a market test for digital distribution

  • menage #12 1 year ago

    I don't think the GO flopped because of the download only format and retailers not wanting to sell it. Something like an iPad is flying out of the shops right now.

    My main concern next to the price is that it didn't do much else besides gaming, and as a gamer which the machine is mareketed too it was pretty vaque which titles would and wouldn't get a release and if the service was lifelong or just as long as they felt like it.

    Also, no abilty to bargain hunt is an istan no-go. Just look at network games right now and compare them to (new) bargain bin games. I'll never support a system which keeps the prices artifically high.
    Edited by menage at 21/04/11 @ 10:35

  • LazyNinjaUk #13 1 year ago

    I really hope the future of gaming isn't just about downloadable games, I like being able to go into a shop and look at all the games on offer, the same as seeing all the games I have in my collection. I have yet to download a full retail game from XBLA or PSN, until consoles come with at least a terabyte sized hdd, the concept of having to uninstall old games to make way for new ones holds no appeal to me, I've got a PC and Steam account for that which handles things much better.

  • Jay1983 #14 1 year ago

    How about making PSN cheaper than retail for a start?

  • asphaltcowboy #15 1 year ago

    "...perceived high cost"

    Perceived? Er no, just high cost fullstop.

    Sony fucked it big style. Console FAR too expensive, games too expensive and trying to cut out retail - Now, I'm looking forward to the demise of the so-called "specialist" high street game shops as the next guy, but at the very least they should have had games on redeemable code cards so they could be sold in stores...

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #16 1 year ago

    UMD was a bad idea to begin with - electric drive motors in a handheld game system where batter life is critical? Madness.

    Ditching it was a good idea, ditching physical media altogether was bad, though. The idiots should have included a 'cartridge slot' for distributing games on read-only Memory sticks, that'd work on PSP-3000, too, and phased out UMD across the board.

    Just like they're doing on NGP.
    Edited by MENTAL1ST at 21/04/11 @ 10:45

  • Lee_Morris #17 1 year ago

    Nice to see Eurogamer declaring whether something is a flop or not. Station and above come to mind

  • onyxbox #18 1 year ago

    I liked the PSPgo and still use it because it's small, the games are really good and the battery life is good.

    Looking forward to the NGP tho'

  • MaFlippinHeadHurts #19 1 year ago

    It didn’t help either that they weren’t supporting the original PSP customers. There was no way I was going to buy a PSPgo when I couldn’t play all the games I’d bought on UMD. It felt at the time that they weren’t bothered about finding a solution to this either

  • paulf #20 1 year ago

    Michael Pachter stating the bloody obvious and getting paid a fortune for it since gods knows when

  • gjgjg #21 1 year ago

    The bigger story here is that Patcher didn't make a completly off mark analysis

  • Drygore #22 1 year ago

    As far as i know ALL major NGP games will release both digitally AND as physical retail.. Unlike what the article says. Where it is stated that only some games will get a physical release. Isn't that what Sony have said?

  • Whitster #23 1 year ago

    I hope all you people gunning for the demise of computer games retail soon face redundency yourselves like the staff of my local Gamestation have just been though!

  • twh104 #24 1 year ago

    If the price crashes sub-100, may be worth picking up (you can get the 10 free games still...)

  • No1_Dave #25 1 year ago

    Why are some people (gamers/analysts et al) love/looking forward to the "digital download only" future so much? It will only mean less competition on the prices of games, platform holders monopolising game prices, games costs constantly staying at £30-£50 on psn/xbl, might be a sale once in a while when they drop the prices by £5-£10, whereas as now people can constantly pick up bargain games a few weeks/months down the line for £5-£15 each, I for one certainly do not want the current model of "digital download only" futue when game prices constantly stay at sky high prices, will be voting wilth my wallet for sure.

  • HiddenAway #26 1 year ago

    How about making PSN cheaper than retail for a start?

    Retail then says "we're not stocking your products" because there would be little/no value to them competing against you, leaving you with a single market that may not be accessible to all users which eventually dies because you priced yourself too low with little exposure (as the retailers will probably also boycott your hardware as well).

    Trust me, I'd love PSN to be cheaper but retail will always have a say on the console market for the near future. If the PSPGo was to be more attractive price wise, voucher codes could have been sold by retail for the best games with them setting their own prices (then this would have an impact on Sony's Playstation store - as what would be the point of buying direct, unless Sony pledged to give a bigger slice of the revenue to the game companies to support them)

  • FladgeMangle #27 1 year ago

    I have one. It's a great little console but hobbled by a lack of "thinking it through". Some notable mistakes -

    1.Thinking consumers are idiots. They can see that they're having to pay considerably more for digital downloads and so don't. And indeed didn't. Owning a PSPgo pretty much ended my PSP gaming because of this.
    2. Missing feature A. The headphone jack that allows you to use the "remote" volume/pause control. Without this, the PSPgo is next to useless as a media player.
    3. Missing feature B. Standard USB. The proprietary power/data lead that's about an inch long and grooved so you can't even use a USB extension cable. Why are you trying to wind me up, Sony?
    4. Second analog stick. I don't care what Sony says about BC or "continuing the PSP experience". They should have put one on and that's all there is too it. Even PSone games need it ffs.This alone could have made the PSPgo a success.

    Unit too expensive, games too expensive, nothing added but a couple of nice PSP features taken away.

    So yeah. Ta-rah ya shitter! :-)

  • Colin8703 #28 1 year ago

    My PSP 2000 is broken so am gong to get a 3000 when it gets cheaper towards the NGP release.

    Would be nice if you could transfer UMD's to NGP for use as I also have JP games unreleased here so couldn't get them on PSN anyway.

  • ISmoke #29 1 year ago

    Until PSN was able to give user incentive to use their DD system it was going to flop. Take a long hard look at valve and look how they operate steam. Old games shouldn't be the same price as one released tomorrow. It's DD things should be cheaper.

    For most of it's life my Go was used to play Pokemon Leaf Green and Emerald anyway.

  • des #30 1 year ago

    More like definition of flop.

  • bikmate #31 1 year ago

    It sucked, because they were selling it in countries which did not have access to the PS Store. Now that's just plain dirty.

  • photoboy #32 1 year ago

    I think three things killed the PSPGo:

    1) The inability to transfer your UMD games. Sony and other publishers were too greedy to let people transfer their existing games which meant buying them again for extortionate prices.

    2) Games (old and new) just weren't released on PSN. Two years on and there's still no Ridge Racers on there. I mean come on that one's a launch title for fuck's sake.

    3) Game price. I'm firmly convinced the reason PSN games and Xbox Games on Demand are so damned expensive is because right now, MS/Sony/Nintendo need retailers. If they start undercutting them, the retailers will start to demand cheaper games so they can remain competitive (or they will just stop selling company X's products). Until the majority of gamers are downloading their games direct, retailers will continue to force high online game prices.

    I've got a white PSPGo and it's a lovely bit of kit. It feels incredibly thin in your hands and it has a very nice screen, it's a real shame Sony totally fucked the execution.

  • Thunderbolt #33 1 year ago

    2 years from now when the ngp flops . They will again have learnt nothing and still blame everything but the high prices

  • LeChuckie #34 1 year ago

    I play my go on the train every day. The main advantage is I can carry it around in my pocket unlike the standard model. A shame people didn't appreciate this more.

  • Mister-Wario #35 1 year ago

    "UMD was a bad idea to begin with - electric drive motors in a handheld game system where batter life is critical? Madness".

    You say that, but I have an old PSP and I manage to get a lot of playtime out of a single charge. I haven't measured it accurately but the amount of playtime I get is, im my experience, very impressive even when I bump up the graphics on KH: BBS for instance.

  • Widge #36 1 year ago

    Putting a second stick on the PSPgo would have been ridiculous, what would all the 1000 - 3000 users do? What would the game devs do? Code for the platform with 2 sticks as a preference or code for the massive market that has 1 stick?

  • NotSoSlim #37 1 year ago

    @Thunderbolt

    You comment on price yet no one knows the price of NGP. Wouldn't it be best to wait until E3 to judge or form an opinion on if it would flop?

  • FladgeMangle #38 1 year ago

    @Widge

    Not as ridiculous as what they ended up doing, surely? PSP 1000, 2000 and 3000 user still had UMD.

    Digital copy options though. Did you see MHP3 running on NGP with a 2 stick patch? All is - or would have been - possible .

    Think Move support add ons...oh well, all water under the bridge now isn't is?

  • Zaltan #39 1 year ago

    If it were easy to run custom firmware they would have sold more.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #40 1 year ago

    What would the game devs do?

    What did they do when Sony released a new joypad for PS1 that had two analogue sticks on it when the original had none?

  • Ryze #41 1 year ago

    Sony 'can't do' networked software and services.

  • Bigmac1910 #42 1 year ago

    @No1_Dave

    Because the prices will actually go down, look at the Itunes AppStore, even more advanced games from major publishers are much cheaper than any other platform ex. GTA China Town Wars. And also because the trade-ins keep the game prices artificially high, once that's gone, the game prices will go down.

  • Duggie8472 #43 1 year ago

    I still use the psp ( original ) look forward to getting the NGP in my hands

  • 32768Colours #44 1 year ago

    "PSPgo could have contributed very helpful feedback to Sony's dedicated handheld strategy as an open beta marketplace test in the evolution of game distribution from a physical media format to digital media format. NGP may well be a better system due to lessons Sony learned with PSPgo."

    That's all very nice for the NGP R&D boys, but not so nice for the poor sods who bought the PSPgo in good faith and now have to suffer its miserable fate.

    Next time you do an "experiment" try doing traditional market research instead of shafting your loyal fans. If nothing else, releasing poorly thought out products won't help the PSP brand; perhaps one reason why they might avoid calling the NGP the PSP2.
    Edited by 32768Colours at 21/04/11 @ 13:52

  • BonzoBanana #45 1 year ago

    If they wanted the PSP Go to succeed it should have entered the market below the cost of a PSP3000 and they would have recouped costs from PSN sales. So it should have been something like £79 or £99. It was launched at a ridiculous price.

  • Toothball #46 1 year ago

    @photoboy

    That about sums up my thoughts on the Go.

    I'm still happy I got one. While I lost the ability to play UMDs on it (just on it, I kept my 2000), it made me stop buying UMDs and get downloads where I could. I suspected the absence of a UMD drive on it was a big indicator that Sony were ditching it as a format either way, so switching to digital meant that that wouldn't be a limiting factor in backwards compatibility later on. Admittedly that still leaves out a lot of my UMDs, but it's something of a head start on the NGP. Will be especially useful when the inevitable post-launch lack of new games kicks in, which is currently seeing me mostly using my 3DS to play regular DS games.

  • Collymilad #47 1 year ago

    I didn't buy a PSPGo because at the time it cost more than the 360 and was about the same price as the PS3.

    Fking ridiculous for something that is effectively a 5 year old handheld in a new case.

  • castertroy #48 1 year ago

    It flopped because Sony did not back it up. I have one myself and do like it. I loved my Psp 1 and Psp 2000. And lucky the games Sony released for download kept me happy. I will be getting a ngp. Sony do not fuck it up !

  • butcherknife #49 1 year ago

    I play my PSPgo a few times a week...I would play it everyday if I had the time. Currently I am playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker which is just a really cool game. But I wish I could play it with 2 analog sticks. :) PSPgo was overpriced at $250, is over priced now at $199...should be $169. I received mine as a gift...and would likely never have purchased it otherwise due to the high price.

  • carlitoswagon #50 1 year ago

    Amoung other things people where miffed at paying full retail price for downloads. Music downloads are cheaper than buying a CD, so why the fuck did Sony think people would pay top dollar to download old games etc. Thats why Steam does so well. Great bargains which people appreciate. You wonder how stupid the decision makers are at Sony or detached from relaity, when it comes to making decisions which simply piss people off.

  • Spunkweazle #51 1 year ago

    nothing gets past Michael Pachter, hes as sharp as a tack that lad, no one else could have predicted the demise of the PSPGo, whilst standing over its cold stiff corpse.

    I look forward to his predictions regarding the Sega Dreamcast

  • Zozzilla #52 1 year ago

    I agree with a lot of the comments - if they'd allowed you to transfer your UMD's to it, it would have done a lot better.

  • yegon #53 1 year ago

    If they halved all the PSN prices and released the entire back catalogue it may have worked.

    More expensive than retail + limited selection = epic fail.

  • rockin_rob_1 #54 1 year ago

    it's only real failure was the stupidly high price of the downloads, often higher priced at release and much much higher priced further down the road.

  • zedzee #55 1 year ago

    The PSPgo, in my opinion, failed because of the following points:

    1. It was too expensive.
    2. It was download only.
    3. Consumers were being asked to pay more for a lesser spec, eg. smaller screen than PSP.
    4. Retailers couldn't care less for it, because it was like an insult (selling the console only, with no involvement in the software sales) to the injury already incurred by the poor support given to the PSP, by both Sony and third party devs.
    5. Sony thought it could combine the model of digital downloads only, with the model of packaged games that command a 'normal' price.
    6. Sony failed to achieve a reasonable pricing policy of download only games over the packaged games.
    7. Sony failed to rally the support of developers to both the PSPgo and PSP.

    If Sony do not offer proper support to the NGP's packaged games catalogue, it will end up in the same boat as the PSPgo, with mobile phones being infinitely cheaper and much easier to lug around in one's pockets.

    Although I'd love to see compilation packs of download-only games being put on one cartridge for the NGP and sold as a physical package. That would be really great, because then Sony would be catering for everyone and giving those people who are not into downloads, a chance to experience what (cheap) content they're missing!

    Over & Out.

  • dirtysteve #56 1 year ago

    Wouldn't a reason as to why it flopped have more authority coming from Sony, or a recognised expert rather than Wesley's special friend Pachter?

  • Machiavellian #57 1 year ago

    The PSPgo did not sell because it was competting with it's cheaper brothers at a much higher price and no real added value. Build wise the PSPgo was definitely better but 100 dollar better no. Once mind share turned negative, it's hard to come back from something like that.

  • Sevens #58 1 year ago

    "Indeed, some believe it was an experiment in digital distribution ahead of the NGP. All NGP games will be sold digitally as downloads - only some as physical products in shops."

    Misleading. Apparently all games have to be sold digitally, while they don't have to be sold physically. The results of that are difficult to predict. "Only some" implies rather limited numbers. That's not adequate.

  • BonzoBanana #59 1 year ago

    The NGP is going to be irritating if top games are released digitally and you wait for the cartridge version. I like the current arrangement a lot where the big games come on umd and the smaller games are both cheap and quick to download and you put on the psp's memory card. Waiting for some huge ngp game to download and fill up my memory card and pay full whack for it doesn't appeal. I also like to have some quick play games for short sessions and a big ambitious time decimating game for longer sessions. It seems to be a good system. The PSP Go had the big game slow download situation that is highly annoying especially if your paying full price for it. Sony just need to have people at the sharp end who are game players themselves who make carefully considered decisions about pricing and availability.

  • Quak #60 1 year ago

    It was obviously doomed since conception.

    > The download-only mechanism was not as attractive as they thought it would be.

    They thought making only a fraction of the games available and pricing them above and beyond the UMD versions was attractive?

  • ruddiger7 #61 1 year ago

    it was a flop because people wanted custom firmware. there was no use for it

  • dfooster #62 1 year ago

    I don't think the psp go was the first download only gaming device. Well not if you are including the iPhone anyhow. Anyway from a personnel point of view the current broadband speeds are not quick enough yet for download only games. I can download an iOS game in a matter of minutes, but a full game on xbox live might take me a day or two. It ties up my broadband for other things and the games price wise are so expensive I just opt for a play.com physical purchase or nip down to the shops.

    Consumers generally are not daft and will seek out the easiest cheapest route to getting what they want. It's a shame Sony and Microsoft don't follow these basic principles when they bring out these new devices.