Apr 20

PSP Gone: Sony Kills Off Two-Year Old Console

Posted in: playstation, sony, Today's Chili, Toys and Games

Cute, but doomed: The PSPgo will no longer be made by Sony. Photo Jim Merithew / Wired.com

Sony has announced that it will no longer make the little PSPgo portable games console. Speaking to Japanese site Impress, Sony confirmed rumors that the console, just over two years old, will be euthanized, and production will cease. Any units still in warehouses around the world will remain on sale until they’re gone.

The PSPgo is a cut-down version of the PSP. It launched in 2009 and managed to slim down to around half the size of the PSP by ejecting the UMD disk drive and hiding the controls on a slide-out panel.

Why has Sony killed the console so soon? We may never know, but we suspect that the PSPgo never really sold very well — the unit saw a hefty price cut in Japan last October, bringing it from ¥26,800 ($323) to ¥16,800 ($203). Add in competition from the cheaper Nintendo DS Lite and the do-anything iPod Touch and you can see that things may have been difficult.

Then again, the PSPgo may just have been axed to make way for the Sony Ericsson PSP phone, the Xperia Play, which is remarkably similar to the PSPgo, and includes a competent Android cellphone, too.

Either way, the little fella probably won’t be missed, and Sony has committed to continue soldiering on with the bigger PSP-3000. Good luck, Sony! Now, where’s my iPod? I feel like a game of Angry Birds.

SCE, PSP go to complete the shipment [AV Watch / Impress]

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