P S Plea

(Or, SKU You!)

After a number of heart-to-heart conversations and much soul searching, my husband and I have made the decision to add another handheld gaming system to our little family. We currently have a DS Lite (his) comprising the entire mobile contingent of our gaming hardware, the stationary branch of which is well represented by Nintendo's and Sony's most recent offerings. (We also have a broken XBox, but, hey, who doesn't?) We had initially planned to add another DS Lite to the brood, in part so that we could play multiplayer games together over WiFi, but primarily so that I could join his FFIII friends list; apparently, you can't unlock the ultimate items in that game if you don't have anyone on your WiFi friend list. And no one hates leaving a game unfinished more than my husband.

Then we began to hear mutterings of a Disgaea port for PSP and SquareEnix announced that the twentieth anniversary of Final Fantasy collection is going to include several entries for the PSP (Final Fantasy I and II Anniversary Editions, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core). Knowing that I have no higher aspiration in life than to buy and play every Final Fantasy title, again and again, as frequently as Square releases it, my husband suggested that we might get a PSP instead of a second DS Lite. Other notable forthcoming titles like Jeanne D'Arc (by the same folks who made Rogue Galaxy and DQVIII) and Tales of the World, and a host of existing titles that I never got to play (LocoRoco, Valkyrie Profile, etc.) are starting to make the PSP look pretty tempting. With the long-rumored price drop in effect as of April 3, there's more reason than ever to move forward with picking one up.

I have one big reservation, though. It's not really limited to the PSP, but since I already own all of the consoles I'm planning to need for the next five to ten years, this is the area that best spotlights the problem in my case.

I have a sinking feeling that the moment I run out and pick up a PSP, Sony is going to announce a new SKU. It happened to early adopters of the XBox 360---the new XBox 360 Elite is going to be a bargain compared to the Premium model that was previously the high-end 360 (the Elite is more expensive, yes, but not proportionately more expensive for all of the upgrades that it contains). What is disturbing about news of the impending new MS SKU is not necessarily that they're releasing a new "trim level" of the 360; that might disturb some early adopters who feel as though they were mislead when they purchased the "best" 360 early on, and I understand their feelings, but MS hasn't defrauded them or anything. What I do think is underhanded is MS's deliberate campaign to cover up development of the Elite in order to prevent sales of the Premium from dipping. See, e.g., Peter Moore's comments as of January 2007 to the tune of "You know, certainly the price point of the PS3 isn't something that I want to emulate. It's very difficult for me to point to anything there that I think we're missing right now."

Is it possible that the 360 Elite, announced in March of 2007, was not yet in development as of January 2007 when Moore made these comments that directly imply that the 360 doesn't need any upgrades? If the 360 wasn't missing anything, why was a new SKU announced three months later? Indeed, a SKU that is intended to compete with the PS3? In fact, there is some suggestion that Sony, too, is working on an upgraded PS3. That's all fine with me; I don't feel that my PS3 is missing anything, and if I decide I need a larger harddrive for it, I can easily upgrade the one I have. With the PSP, however, rumors of a redesign have been flying around for ages---now confirmed, now debunked---so that I have to prepare myself for the eventuality that, the moment I commit my money to a PSP, Sony is going to announce a redesign---Internal storage! Bluetooth! Improved D-Pad functionality! And then I'll be the fool parted from her money too soon, wishing I had waited longer for the new and improved PSP.

I have no beef with the game industry expanding its offerings in the console and handheld departments. Considering that new items in this industry become available only once every five to ten years, it makes sense for developers to give us more options from the start. What I am concerned about is the sudden shift toward releasing an item, selling 10 million of them, and then turning around and releasing a "new and improved" model so that you can sell said item again to some of those same 10 million who already purchased it. I can understand the allure of this business model. After all, once you sell a console to a customer, assuming your high-quality product doesn't break (again, not a safe assumption *cough XBOX cough*), they're not going to buy another one. Nobody replaces their console annually or every couple of years like they do with PCs and cars. But if a new SKU is in development, I think console makers have an ethical obligation to let consumers know, so that we can make an educated purchases.

In the mean time, I'm going to delay my purchase until my birthday this summer; if I haven't heard any news of a redesigned or reissued PSP by then, I'll take the plunge. I can't avoid the guilty feeling, though, that my decision to wait is only holding up the impending news of a redesign. I'm sure they're only waiting for the charge to hit my credit card before the press release rolls out.