We recently discussed the release of the PSP Go, which drew criticism for many design choices that were of dubious value to consumers. Now, Phaethon360 sends in a story about why Sony felt the need to improve upon the old PSP. "As a format, the UMD was holding the entire platform back. Few people (if anyone) bought into the UMD movie hype Sony attempted to thrust back in 2005. Very soon after that, people realized they could rip their DVDs to a memory stick with the same quality. It's ironic how, as the price of Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo dropped and size increased, PSP UMD sales decreased along with it. It doesn't take too many Howard Stringers to figure out what the problem was." Indeed, Sony was complaining of rampant PSP piracy for quite some time. They cited "legal and technical issues" for not supporting the transfer of UMD games onto the PSP Go; undoubtedly they couldn't find a way to keep pirated games from being copied.

Phaethon360 sends in a piece that looks at how quickly game costs can add up these days, now that DLC, microtransactions and standalone expansions are commonplace, writing, "If you were trying to the think of the most expensive games to play, Rock Band or a monthly-fee MMORPG would come to mind. But Halo 3 is right up there, too." It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.

Phaethon360 writes "The film industry, the music industry and the gaming industry — three factions of entertainment in the grasp of a vicious and unbridled tyrant. The internet is a toddler with a handgun, and its whims shall be met — and with great abandon. It can be a source of great wealth or utter failure. But what's striking is the fact that no one seems to be taking the necessary precautions to ensure a smooth and prosperous transition. I'm talking, of course, about doing away with the middle man; the gaming magazine." Dan Amrich, former editor of OXM, recently argued the other side of this issue, saying that game-related print media doesn't get the respect it deserves for breaking stories earlier than online media, and for not just waiting "until the information came to them, in the form of a PR release and a video." A related piece at GameSetWatch suggests that the print media is doing a decent job of undercutting itself through unsustainably-low subscription fees.