I won a PSPgo in the Sony X10 Blogger Contest and have totally enjoyed playing it the past couple of days. The kids have been wanting a portable gaming system for a while now – fun to put one in their hands and see what happens. The system has honestly had a bit of a rough start as gaming websites and reviews have been pretty tough on it, but I’ve been super excited to try it for myself. Of course, you know how much I love the Xbox360 (read my Xbox360′s blog), but there are some great Playstation-exclusive games I’ve wanted to check out.

Here’s a quick rundown of my feelings about the PSPgo:

The Good
+great game selection
We have a bunch of Sony products in our house, but have never owned a Playstation. Having a different portable system vs home console let’s you chose a bunch of exclusive games you normally wouldn’t get to play. We picked up Little Big Planet, Mod Nation Racers and Star Wars Battlefront because they were games we were excited about but haven’t had access to on other consoles.

+no pesky game discs
The future of game delivery is purely digital downloads – and honestly, this is a little bit a head of its time. 16GB of room in the PSPgo which is plenty of space for a bunch of great games. Huge selection, average experience in the PlayStation Store trying to see what all you can buy. Brilliant.

+the PSPgo is the most beautiful hand-held video games system to date
I fell in love with it. The PSPgo feels great in your hand – aside from a slightly awkward analog stick, it feels (almost) like something Apple would create. It is pure style even now being a year old – the slide-out controls are great and the lack of a disc tray/cartridge slot makes it so solid.

The Bad
- it takes some time to setup
You open the system and get excited to play your first game … but you can’t. You have to charge it up. Then update the operating system. Then set the preferences. Then sign up for a PlayStation Network account. Then download a game. Then finally play. Once you get to the end of this process it is great, but playing something quickly out of the box would provide a much better experience.

- why can’t I download in the background?
When you download a game, that’s literally all you can do. Sit there and let the game download. Now it is relatively speedy, but background downloading while you play with an “active downloads” section that queues them up would be much preferred.
- forget the used game market
Because the system relies on all digital download games, you’re stuck paying whatever prices you get form the official store. Forget trading discs with your friend or renting a title for the weekend. I like that I can download demos, but $39.99 feels steep for a portable game with little incentive for publishers to push the prices down. Again, this is the future, too, I just like the social/secondary market of physical games in the current generation.

PSPgo: Final Verdict
The system is super for the Xbox360 owner that wants to get a shot at playing Sony-exclusive games like Little Big Planet and Mod Racer Nation. While it isn’t quite robust enough to play the full-experience PS3 titles, it is much more powerful and slicker than all of the other portables on the market. If you don’t mind paying a premium for games and not being able to resell them, the PSPgo is the way to go.

JG

Sony provided me with a free Sony Ericsson X10 phone and a PSPgo and FIFA Soccer 10 game in connection with my participation in the Sony Ericsson/Sony Style X10 Blogger Contest, which requires me to blog about Sony and/or Sony Ericsson Products.