Can retail and DD coexist? If they continue marketing as is, i.e. relatively cheap, simpler games retailing for 1/6 to 1/10 the cost with full retail games selling for the same price as a digital download. (Which is crap, it eliminates all costs associated with production/distribution increasing overhead by a huge margin however they can't lower prices on DD without pissing off retailers who are undercutting physical media)

Anyway, both companies are just whoring out their handhelds now, but at least Sony made a radical change with the PSPGo. Nintendo looks absolutely idiotic to release a new DSi one year later with nothing but a larger screen. Please.

It seems like dealing with two entirely different animals on both the consumer and system front.

Call me crazy, but I'd like to see Sony try this again in a few years when they get their thing together and really think this through 'cause I think all they did was have even supporters loose confidence. Be like water, Sony.

A lot of big people/blogs/industry leaders are calling for this all digital revolution, the funny thing is the only people it benefits are the big game corporations. The consumer gets shafted, as do a large amount of the industry that's ballooned out from gaming.

-Distribution is controlled by Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft, prices will remain largely fixed at new prices, price drops will never be as cheap finding a game used (for the most part)
-Kiss collecting games goodbye
-Rental services like Gamefly are gone, forget sharing games with friends, trying your friends games out before you buy them
-Games lose all inherent value as theres no way to resell them unless you part with your console (selling your console is a whole separate problem, do you take the loss on the games or try and sell the entire system as a whole?)

Its just a big scheme for companies to make more overhead off games while eliminating resellers (which some idiots in the industry honestly believe they are entitled to some of these profits). Consumers just don't stand to benefit at all from this.

Now that said, I -do- hate what Sony has done with the Go, mostly because they would have me re-buy all of my games over again. If there were even a way for me to trade in my UMDs for digital copies I'd probably jump on that. As said though, I'm not willing to buy a new version of my handheld when my somewhat large (15-20) game library would be rendered completely useless on it. =

Part of me wonders if there might be some anti-establishment type nonesense going on, akin to what we heard about in Europe (the UK was it?) where a major retail store wasn't going to sell the PSPGo because of the software/UMD issue.
There is NO WAY in hell Sony could be SO stupid as to market the Go this badly, yet if that is indeed the case then they deserve the failure.

I might point out, BTW, that the PSPGo costs more than the PSP X000 series VALUE packs here. That is a bit steep really, especially for a smaller screen. And the PSP had sold quite well here in ths past year with Monster Hunter and the 3000-series. I wouldn't be surprised if the new (and pointless) DSi LL will also launch to less-than-stellar sales.

I will say that at some of the major electronics stores, the 10,000Yen Playstation Network Cards are sold out.

And may I ask about the PSPGo's screen? Why was there so much conflicting information as to its true nature? I bought it still under the impression it has a touch screen (a la the Mylo) and yet clearly it doesn't. Did Sony ever come out and say it does NOT have a touch screen?

Also, on a final note I did indeed purchase the Go when it released on Sunday. It feels like a piece of crap in light of the horribly designed/ugly “gamepad” portion. It's basically a Mylo without the keyboard.