E3 2009: PSP Go vs. PSP-3000

I swear I am a zombie in the morning. I don't think of anything except my regular routine to wake up, get ready for work and get out the door. My routine doesn't seem to have picked up on adding my notebook to my work bag yet, so all my E3 notes sit at home on the sofa. I'll get to writing about Nintendo and Sony's conferences later today (and tomorrow, I'm sure).

For now though, let's talk PlayStation Portable. We've known for a week or so about the PSP Go. Rumors, at first, sure. They were confirmed yesterday at Sony's press event, and some information regarding how the PSP Go and the PSP-3000 will co-exist. I was at first worried that Sony would pull a Nintendo and provide content exclusive to the PSP Go, leaving all the other PSP owners in the dust. My fears seem to be unfounded.

As announced, all future PSP games will be available for download on the PSN, but they will also all be released on physical media, in this case the UMD. So, no longer do I have to worry about titles like Gran Tursimo for PSP or Dissidia: Final Fantasy only being available digitally. This is good news, as the more I think about it, the more I will likely stick to a normal PSP and forgo the $250 PSP Go.

Speaking of which, $250? Really? I'd rather spend $250 on a Wii, to be quite honest. I was expecting under $200, and a price-cut for the PSP-3000, much like Nintendo did with their DS Lite and DSi prices.

As it stands right now, I'm just likely to upgrade to a PSP-3000 (I currently still have a release day 1000 model) and a larger memory card. As an aside, I'll have to get a larger memory card anyway because I'm so buying Final Fantasy VII off the PSN, and its 1.37GB in size.

Like was mentioned at the press conference yesterday, the PSP Go will appeal to a certain demographic, but I see the PSP-3000 still being the mainstay of Sony's handheld gaming. I really think its too early to go to a download-only format for a console or handheld, although this is certainly what both Nintendo and Sony are pushing. Granted, it works better now on a handheld device than on a console, but I still like having physical media, regardless of the extra costs involved.

Still, the PSP Go does have some attractive features, such as 16GB of on board memory, which would, at least at the start, cut out the need for purchasing a memory stick. (Of course, previous PSP owners will likely have one anyway with some media they may want to transfer over.) I'm not going to lie, the PSP Go is a sexy device. For me, its not sexy enough to drop $250 on, though.