Okay, time for me to address some points in detail.
Seriously though, while I do appreciate the drive towards digital distribution, I do believe that Sony might be trying this "experiment" at a time where they have everything to lose if it doesn't fly ASAP (regarding their hand held business). Retailers won't want to (or will begrudgingly) stock the PSP Go! due to the fact that it'll make their dealings mostly irrelevant as they won't be doing more than stocking the system without raking in the bigger profit namely a cut from the sales of physical games.
The brick-and-mortar stores WILL still be stocking the games. However, the prospected plan is for them to stock an otherwise empty box that will only contain a voucher with a download code for the customer to authorize the download of the game. Plus, to level revenues, the brick-and-mortar store will charge an extra $5 for the purchase over the online purchase price point, which will go entirely to them, since the rest of the price goes to Sony for them to distribute however they want.
One way this could be addressed would be to charge consumers for using their UMD to Flash Memory kiosks in store and give a good cut of this revenue to the brick and mortar store.
Surprising that you even thought of ANY OTHER WAY this could work. This is conceivably the only way for both ends to make a profit.
But then, what happens to that bit of the market who won't want to pay for this thinking that it isn't fair to be recharged to play the games that they currently own?
Because, if Sony plays their cards right, they will only charge a minimal fee (fraction of the price of ANY full game) for the transfer only, and the revenue of which will go to the physical store, while the rest of the price goes for re-investment in keeping the kiosk working.
Then there's the idea that Sony could very easily run into the "fridge" problem that many a Wii owner have already experienced. If the Go's memory is limited and more and more customers become dissatisfied with how many games they can keep and play at any given time, will Sony have a means for customers to keep a legitimate copy of their game elsewhere and swap and go as they please or will the Go owners have to get the "clean out yo' fridge" mantra as well?
Because the PSP Go! has never been mentioned to have ditched the Memory Stick port, the Fridge Logic doesn't apply here. You can have as many games as you can store in whatever Memory Sticks you have, period.
Also, extending from that metaphor, what kind of DRM would be put in place to both make sure that a person has full access and rights to use their game in any manner while preventing piracy from becoming even more rampant with the new games being easily transferable data as opposed to software that needed custom hardware to break and distribute?
The probable DRM system implemented would theoretically HAVE to link the game to the hardware. But even though I don't endorse piracy, practically whatever they could probably concoct would, in the end, be ultimately broken, so the best bet would be an authorization system with some kind of hardware-bundled code or something of the sort.
If this is all true, this could be one of Sony's last true Hail Mary plays. The failure that could come from this falling through could be devastating though.
True, and as we all know, Sony does have a rather annoying habit of shooting itself in the foot constantly, relentlessly, consistently and repeatedly, but I'm putting my faith on this move for it to be Sony's redemption from their (all too infamous) recent snafus. If this kicks off to a good start, it's going to be the first serious move in severely attacking Nintendo's position as leader of the handheld market, if only for the novelty factor at first. At least in my personal opinion.
Do note that I am in no way a business enterprise manager though, so my assumptions are only based on experience with distribution models and insane amounts of hope for Sony to redeem itself.
I read that part in the article. However, that thought still came to my mind. Except for the one in Manhattan, I know of no full-fledged Sony stores, which means that for this to transpire, they are going to have to supply GameStop with many of the UMD-MemStick kiosks, which is going to cost them money. If it's going to cost them money for these kiosks, then Sony is 95% going to charge people money to use these kiosks (possibly per game), due to the fact that they need to make some money back for this kiosk process.
Read my above reply to Jerry. If done correctly, the kiosks would practically be self-fed points of sale, needing no further investment from Sony except for their initial establishment. Of course, this also depends on the price point established to transfer the games... And you also have to take into account the techies who will probably figure out one way to do this themselves.
Also, I'm no hacker, but wouldn't full digital game possession make hacking games even easier than it already is for the PSP?
Very true, but if the game was somehow linked directly to the system hardware, it would make it WAY more difficult for the potential crackers to find ways to circumvent the system, unless Sony plays a stupid move and hides their security in plain sight.
I told my brother about this and his complaints was more on the digital download and the speed of download, and battery life.
I fully agree with him. Hopefully, if someone at Sony has any brains, they'll distribute some kind of first party software for regular end-user computers to download the games and transfer them to the user's PSP/Memory Stick.
Whew. Been a long time since I wrote a post this long with so much consumed brainpower backing it. >_>