If you’re one of the two people out there (one of them being Kaz Hirai’s mom) planning on buying the overpriced PSP Go, especially if you already have a PSP, today’s announcement will come as good news (as much as “good news” can be associated with the Go without being promptly followed by “drop in price”). The PSP Go will use the Memory Stick Micro instead of the Pro-Duo that all other PSP models use. However, Sony will be releasing two bundles to help make up for this disparity. Available in either an 8gb or 16gb option, the bundles will include the Micro memory stick plus a duo-sized adapter so that you can use your new teeny-tiny memory card with your older PSP. No price for these bundles was given, although expect them to hit stores in October alongside the PSP Go’s official release.

Frankly, while it’s nice to see Sony at least attempting to accommodate those who want to upgrade it seems, and sorry to be so blunt, stupid. Wouldn’t it make more sense that you’d want to transfer your files from your Pro-Duo cards onto your PSP Go’s tiny hard drive? In other words, wouldn’t an adapter that would enable you to use your older memory cards with your PSP Go, if only for transferring files, have made more sense? But I guess that wouldn’t jive with Sony’s overall PSP Go policy of sucking up as much money from consumers as possible. Heavens forbid if you use cards you already own! Let’s make everyone buy new ones!

Perhaps my sarcasm is a little heavy handed, but the press release with the announcement touts the joys of the 16GB micro card: “The 16GB M2 card doubles the standard memory.” Maybe you should have given us something more than 16GB of installed memory, especially for $250. Since the “16GB M2 card can hold 7 PSP games,” and considering the lack of UMD drive, that means an awful lot of memory cards, or, at the very least, an awful lot of shuffling.

Couple that with the still unresolved issue of how to get all your UMDs onto your PSP Go, and Sony has left me scratching my head yet again, struggling to understand their business strategy. I’ll give you one hint, Sony: You can’t make money if people don’t buy your product. Haven’t you learned this already the hard way the past few years with the PS3 (thank you, recent price drop)!

Oh, and I forgot to mention the one bonus included in the bundle packages: A voucher to download 100 songs free (from a choice of 30,000), courtesy of Sony Music. I guess there is a silver lining, after all.

[Source: PlayStation Lifestyle]

Tags: memory stick micro, pro-duo, PSP Go!, sony

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm and is filed under News, PSP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.