So, as a post on the Official PlayStation Blog points out, Sony’s PlayStation Portable turns five years old today and while we’re certainly not gonna try to rain on the parade, we here at the ‘Axe thought it was a relevant time to seeks some feedback from the EBA Community in regards to the PSP’s overall success and immediate future. Now, I personally own a PSP and rather enjoy it while traveling around, but I think there are plenty of gamers who might have expected more out of the system over the past five years and even more gamers who have hopes for what it CAN DO over the next 60 months.

With that said, I’m going to invite the Axe Head Army to read the rather triumphantly toned post on the PlayStation Blog and then use the comments section below this post to share your thoughts on what the PSP has accomplished thus far, what you hope it will attain, or whether or not you even give a crap about the PSP to begin with.

Have enough AAA titles been released to justify a purchase of the system? Are PSP games DIFFERENT enough from their PS3 brethren to generate interest? Does the hardware itself deliver a good experience or would you like to see something different? What about the PSP Go? Has it hurt the PSP brand overall or made things better?

Obviously, there are A LOT of questions regarding Sony’s PSP, so thanks in advance for your participation on the matter…We’re looking forward to your feedback and hopefully we as a community can deliver some good input to Sony regarding our take on the PlayStation Portable’s past, present, and future.

Welcome back Axeheads for another week of The Rumor KILL.  First off, I would like to thank everyone for the kind words and ratings in response to the debut of the feature this past week.  I’m glad you guys had fun with the column and more importantly I’m glad that some great discussion came out  of it as well.  We have an interesting lineup of some of the juiciest gossip to come out of the gaming world so without another wasted word…lets ravage some rumors!
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Spears to the front and march! Its time for another edition of EpicBattleCry! This week, we check on the new Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition, run down details on the new Matt Hazard title, sneak deets of Modern Warfare 2’s first map pack and lack of a pre-release demo, and ponder the new Xbox 360 holiday bundles headed our way.

With Super Street Fighter IV announced, and Fable II now available as piecemeal downloads, we take a look at the reality of digital distribution and work over the pros and cons of this emerging business model. So the long-promised ‘Rocktober’ is here and its time to start figuring out what we’re gonna score this month and what we’re gonna pass. With titles like Demon’s Souls, Tekken 6, DJ Hero, Forza 3, Borderlands, Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2 headed our way, its going to be an expensive four weeks.

The Battle Cry of the Week goes to all the righteous souls who didn’t buy a PSPgo, the Brutal Legend demo going public, Alpha Protocol (now being delayed to 2010) in the hopes the extra time will make the game extra awesome, and seeing more developer tools and custom mods making their way to consoles.

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Draw them in close enough for a sword and attack! Its time for another skirmish of EpicBattleCry! This week, we check out the leaked documents that point to Sony offering PS2 games for download on PlayStation 3 (and possibly Dreamcast titles as well), examine Capcom’s latest fan poll on their next “Vs.” title, ponder the news that the God of War III demo will be included with the God of War Collection, and analyze CD Projekt Red’s response to the leaked Witcher 2 video.

Well its the Tokyo Game Show 2009 and we’ve got longboat worth of news goodies. The Sony Motion Controller, the nixed UMD conversion plans for the PSP Go, the Wii Price Cut, Project Natal, The Last Guardian, Gran Turismo 5, and Dead Rising 2 all go under the Axe in this week’s extended skirmish.

The Battle Cry of the Week goes to Okami Chronicles: Tiny Sun, PC Gamers getting the short end of the delay stick, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and game publishers using demos the way they ought to be.

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Well, this pretty much sucks…After stating that a plan to transfer UMD games from the PlayStation Portable to the UMD-less PSP Go was in the works, Sony Computer Entertainment of America has now apparently confirmed that no such transfer system will be available in the US. Speaking to Kotaku, a spokesman stated that “We were evaluating a UMD conversion program, but due to legal and technical reasons we will not be offering the program at this time.”

This despite Sony Europe’s announcement earlier this week that it will provide a “PSP Go Rewards Program” that allows owners of UMD games to exchange up to three of their titles for the digital counterpart or simply choose from other titles on a select list before a certain cut-off date.

So, despite the glimmer of hope that is the phrase “at this time” in the quote above, it appears that supporters of Sony’s PlayStation Portable in the US will have to repurchase their library of games if they plan to continue supporting the platform by picking up the $250 PSP Go when it launches next week.

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A post on the community section of Sony Europe’s website outlines the company’s game plan regarding the sticky situation of convincing consumers to upgrade from their current UMD fed PSPs to the new, ultra portable PSP Go. So, what’s the plan? We’ll let it be stated in their own words. From the post:

The PSPgo rewards scheme will allow you to kick start your Go collection with a couple of free games for those who currently own an older PSP.

This is going to begin on 1 October 2009 and will run until 31 March 2010.

Sounds…complicated. Also, we love how this is referred to as a “scheme”. No word yet on whether or not this same plan, or scheme, will be unleashed on US soil, but one would think it would…And so, the question remains…”To upgrade, or not to upgrade???” We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Congratulations Sony, it takes a lot of work to set back an entire medium of distributing games but it appears if you don’t, you’re taking good strides to.

It’s common sense that a downloadable game is cheaper than distributing a game by retail, after all publishers don’t have to deal with packaging or shipping cost.  So therefore it is expected that downloading a game should be cheaper for the buyer then going to the store and grabbing the box.  Sony Computer Entertainment America apparently disagrees and as such Persona and Gran Turismo start off the trend by being priced equally to their downloadable counterparts at $39.99.

Seeing this caused my bullsh*t alarm to go off like a rocket strapped to a gazelle.  How is it possible to justify this?  A PSP Go owner not only doesn’t get the box with the instruction manual or any other goodies that the publisher or the retail store has thrown in (*cough* Gamestop *cough*) but has to pay the same price as well?  With this knowledge it’s hard for a sensible gamer to justify picking up a PSP Go over a PSP 3000.

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A post today on the official US PlayStation blog informs us all that a Limited Edition Gran Turismo PSP Entertainment Pack is heading our way. The pack, which curiously ships on October 20 (over two weeks after Gran Turismo’s PSP debut on October 1), will retail for MSRP $199.99 and contain the following:

• Mystic Silver PSP-3000 system
• Gran Turismo PSP game on UMD
• PlayStation Network downloadable voucher for a white Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, a color not available in the game and is exclusive to this entertainment pack
• 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo
• PlayStation Network downloadable movie voucher – title TBD
• Sony MusicPass voucher good for 10 downloadable songs – available to U.S. residents only. Choose from hundreds of thousands of your favorite artists from Sony Music Entertainment.

Of course, the game will also be available as a digital download title for the new, shiny, and uber portable PSP Go!. Who else thinks this is kind of a confusing message to consumers about the PSP-3000 vs the PSP Go!??? If you were in the market for a PSP, which one would YOU buy?

While they lay trapped in the valley, sound the charge and bring down the mountain; its time for another edition of EpicBattleCry! In this week’s skirmish we check out the latest news from the Fable franchise, state the obvious with The Beatles: Rock Band DLC announcement, subscribe to World of Warcraft’s first official magazine, and ponder the wisdom of Dark Void’s new release date.

Straight from Gamescom we have official word on the long awaited PS3 price drop and introduction of the Slim PS3. How does Sony’s new system stack up? Next up we run down just a few of the most impressive titles we saw at Gamescom: Final Fantasy XIV, Dante’s Inferno, Gran Turismo 5, and more.

The Battle Cry of the Week goes to Diablo III and the new Monk class, Earthworm Jim getting a truly new release, Brutal Legend for not making us buy it to try it, and calls for more kick-ass comic tie-ins like we saw with Dead Space.

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Sony has revealed a new range of bite-sized, downloadable titles headed to the PSP Go called “minis”. The games, of which 15 will be available for the PSP Go launch on October 1 with about 50 slated for release by the end of the year, will be less than 100MB in size and are expected to retail for a proportionally low price.

“We are very excited to offer so much new content for PSP this year, particularly in this bite-sized form,” said Zeno Colaco, Vice President, Publisher and Developer Relations, SCEE. “In opening the door to developers everywhere, we are broadening the type of content available to PSP owners, and opening up a world of possibilities to enhance the PSP gaming experience.”

“‘minis’ is yet another part of our concerted effort to expand content options on PlayStation Store as the demand for digital content will increase with the launch of PSPgo,” said Eric Lempel, Director of PlayStation Network and Strategic Planning, SCEA. “minis will give developers the opportunity to create and share a variety of new and original content that in some cases, are only available on PSP.”

We’ll let you know about specific titles and other small bits of mini news as we get word.

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