12 years ago, people were not ready for an entirely digital games console—but Sony went ahead and made one anyway. First released in North America on October 1, 2009, the PSP Go was a 56 percent smaller, 43 percent lighter version of Sony's handheld that bravely (or perhaps foolishly) had no disc drive. Games had to be downloaded from the PlayStation Store or transferred from a PC or PS3, which was revolutionary at the time. Like many bold, innovative ideas, however, this didn't translate to sales, and the Go failed quite spectacularly. But it deserved better, because it was, and still is, one of the greatest handheld consoles ever made.
The PSP Go is one of the most beautiful consoles Sony ever designed—both in how it looks and how it feels. It's small, but perfectly formed. The glossy plastic finish feels luxurious in your hands. It slides open with a satisfying, tactile click. The two colourways, Piano Black and Pearl White, are stylish and understated. It's incredibly portable and legitimately pocket-sized, which is great for anyone who likes travelling light. It has some really nice details too, like the clear plastic home button and the shiny metal shoulder bumpers. It's just a delicious object. Aesthetic perfection.
The 3.8-inch LCD screen is smaller than the regular PSP, but visibly sharper and brighter. The build quality is wonderfully sturdy—essential for something that'll be thrown in a rucksack or squeezed hastily into a pocket when a train arrives. The lack of discs means you don't have to ferry a folder full of UMDs around with you and hear the discs whirring and groaning as games pull data from them. The 16GB of built-in flash memory is pretty generous too, with your average PSP game coming in at around 2-4GB. There are plenty of reasons to love the PSP Go.
Okay, it wasn't perfect. It was $250 at launch, which put a lot of people off. As several reviews from the time note, for just $50 more you could get a brand new PS3. If you already owned the UMD version of a PSP game, you'd have to rebuy it digitally to be able to play it on the Go. Sony suggested a UMD transfer program might be implemented, but backed out a month after launch citing 'legal and technical reasons.' Some games, including the excellent Final Fantasy 7 spin-off Crisis Core, never got a digital release, meaning they weren't playable on the Go at all.
But for me, a person who used a PSP Go regularly for several years, the good massively outweighs the bad. It's especially great for playing old PlayStation games. Classics like Final Fantasy 7, Soul Reaver, and Silent Hill look sublime on that crisp, bright little display. You can also turn the Go into an incredible portable retro gaming machine if you jailbreak it and load it with emulators. I look back on it fondly as one of the best experiences I've ever had with a games console, glaring flaws and all.
Today, as physical media slowly but surely becomes a dusty old relic of the past, consoles without disc drives are becoming an industry standard—and will only become more common. Sony may have predicted this sea change and developed the PSP Go to try and get ahead of the curve, but ultimately jumped the gun by about a decade. It sold terribly, the games industry laughed it off, and the console was quietly discontinued just two years after it first emerged into the world. A tragic end for one of the all-time great handheld consoles, but sadly not a surprising one.