>

So I found a sweet deal (loooove redflagdeals.com) on the Sonystyle website. When you apply for a Sony MBNA credit card, they give you points equivalent to $100 cdn for a purchase of a Sony product. Well what would that give me? A PS3 slim for $199? Well no (although I can’t deny that I would have been all over this if I wasn’t on the 360 bandwagon already). How about a PSP? How about a PSP Go? Easily one of the most controversial devices out on the market, it has effectively axed support for any PSP fanboys (and what little there really are in comparison to Nintendo fans) by killing the UMD drive, the optical disc that the PSP games came on. This means that all of their libraries of UMD based games are effectively useless. This was compounded completely last week with the announcement that there would be no software conversions of UMD discs avaliable, due to the problem of copyrights. So there really is no point in PSP owners for upgrading. Furthermore, it comes at a very high price, at 249 CDN (funnily the same as the 249 USD in the States, with no currency conversion). Its priced way too close to the PS3 and much too close to the iPod Touch, which has now been taken by storm for its App Store’s massive library of games and such. Its really funny to think that Apple now ranks close to Nintendo for gaming, simply because of the cheap/wide range of games available.

I hate sounding like an Apple sheep (certainly I feel a little smarter about technology than the average fanboy from any camp), but Apple really has pulled a fantastic job in marketing its products. So great in fact, that it has self-cannibalized (is that redundant?) its own iPod line, with the Nano, Shuffle and Classic taking down iPod growth, because customers now want more than simple media players. They want smart media players. Just like how smart phones have become so popular. Its really incredible to think how Apple has managed to change the market so completely.

Anyways, back to the PSP Go. With an extra 100 bucks off, the PSP Go comes down to a cool 149, a certainly more affordable and worthwhile price point. Will I get one? Maybe. I certainly love the white PSP Go, and how it now is compact enough to put in my pocket. Given how much time I spend on transit, I would love to be able to randomly game, when I just don’t want to listen to music. The large amount of readings I must do begs to differ, but it could be a really solid time. This comes after the unbelievable number of hours I have spent playing Gundam on the original PSP (thanks Owen for distracting me!), the PSP offers what the 360 can’t do- a fun quick ten minutes of laser blasting giant robots before I goto sleep.

That hundred bucks off hits where all reviews have stated the worst part about the PSP Go- price. Certainly there are qualms about the lack of a touchscreen and dual analog sticks, but price seems to be the general trend for negativity in the five or so reviews I have perused. Pretty cool to shave off that much if you ask me.

I really am rooting for the PSP. I love competition on the market, I love the innovation and I hope this pulls Sony back up. But I really doubt it.