Farewell DS Lite & PSP Go

We don’t really post newsworthy stuff here at gS, but I feel we must mention these 2 devices that had recently been discontinued.

The DS Lite came and dominated the handheld market by a storm. Though there wasn’t any technological leaps with this unit, it was actually sort of a downgrade since you loose compatibility for Game Boy games. But, it was slimmer, slicker, and definitely better looking than the previous DS. As most sites on the net mentioned before, it is though as if the DS Lite was printing money for Nintendo. There were countless of Limited Edition DS Lites that were released in Japan but very few were released here in the U.S. or in Europe.

But perhaps the best feature of the DS Lite is it’s ability to still play Game Boy Advance games. This is the very reason why I still own this device. A few interesting games/devices that came out during a transition to the DSi were Bayer’s Didget and Easy Piano (which can still both be bought everywhere). I featured the Didget awhile back here and I thought it was a great thing. It’s too bad that this came out when the DSi was already in the market and it was sort of forgotten which is the very reason why the Guitar Hero DS games failed as well (the controller adapter for Guitar Hero needed the GBA port as well). What it is is a glucose meter that plugs in the GBA port of the DS Lite. There really hasn’t been a company like Bayer to take advantage of the DS’ popularity.

Unlike the popularity of the DS Lite, the PSP Go was the complete opposite. Gamers really didn’t like this device. And with alot of broken promises from Sony, like the ability to re-download games you already purchased, it only made it worst. With alot of reports 2 years ago from UK/Europe discontinuing support for the device it just seems like it was meant to fail.

A failed console or handheld usually gives birth to a future collectible. Failed devices such as the Virtual Boy, to the very recent Game Boy Micro are very sought after by collectors. I’m not certain as to how long Sony will support the PSP Go since the only way to get games is through PSN or through your PS3 through PSN unless you hack it to play copied games. The PSP Go is still pretty expensive even for a discontinued device. I believe Sony still probably has alot of these on their warehouses around the world so I think it’ll take a little while for it to drop.