The PlayStation Portable family introduced its newest evolution the PSP Go system after it was leaked several days ago and an attractive content line up including exclusives Gran Turismo, LittleBigPlanet, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Kaz Harai hailed it as “the the worst kept secret of E3. And we call it PSP Go.” Coming to North America in October 2009, the PSP Go system is an even more portable, pocket-sized and sleeker PSP. Exclusively for downloading digital content, the PSP go system comes built in with 16GB of internal flash memory for games, videos, music, and photos, and will be priced at $249.99. Early commenters have balked at the price and suggested that $199 would be a better price point. The portable console will go on sale in Europe the same day for 249 euros, and availability in Japan will follow a month later for 26,800Y. Unfortunately, the PSP Go does not have a touchscreen.
SCEA also announced a suite of new digital content services that will be available for both PSP go and PSP-3000 systems, including a new music application called “SensMe channels,” a mood based music recommendation system and Media Go!, a free application that makes it easier for consumers to manage their PSP games, photos, videos and music on their PC. Downloadable movies and TV shows can be purchased directly from the PlayStation Store over Wi-Fi (no more need to use the PS3 or PC as a go-between). New PSP titles will be distributed through both UMD at retail and online simultaneously. Also, Sony’s opted for a partnership with eMusic; users can purchase DRM-free tracks from any online music store (Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, and so forth) and simply copy them over to the PSP.
Sony will be releasing software called Media Go to help users manage the PSP’s content on their PC (replaces Sony Media Manager software), which is a program that can also access the entire Playstation Store via PC. Nice. Here’s a video from Sony’s John Koller:
