As any long-time reader of this blog will know, the Bitfood team has been big fans of the GoPSPGo concept that Sony launched in Europe and Asia (but, to our disgust, not in the USA) in 2008.  About 12 months ago we tried to find out what the state of play was on the long delayed introduction of PSPGo!Explore. We called the US and the UK offices. and eventually were sort-of told that it was never gonna happen!

The GoPSPGo site they set up was a real sweet one  - and there was a tailor-made version for a whole stack of countries. The flash production was the kind of quality you would expect from a top game platform.  But if you go to the UK url today - its just a redirect to the PSP section of the Playstation home site in the UK.

Seems like that whole product was a fizz-er and its just all quietly disappeared into the night?

Not so - there is a trail of wreckage - and a funny? post script.

Mop it up as they might, Sony can’t entirely expunge the past. First up, the wayback machine lets us see some of what used to be…at least for the gopspgo dot com version. There you can at least see the bones of the site that used to be. Click on any of the countries listed to see what used to be on offer. Go! Messenger, for example, used to offer:

With Go!Messenger you can use your PSP to keep in touch with friends for free wherever you have access to a Wireless connection

Lets take a closer look at Go!Messenger. This was provided in conjunction with BT . And even a year after they shut it down, there is a site still up saying:

…..we have had to do this…

And its a year later!

Does anyone else see this as really weird?

Well, weirder still is the postscript. When one of the Bitfood team started researching for this post they entered in pspgo.co.uk (understandable, right?)

And you would not believe what they found!!

The joke is on Sony because THIS is what is there….

That’s right - PSP Go-es Nintendo!!
What a trick Nintendo?? has pulled off?

Now to the UK reader this is probably not news (given the PSPGo). But for us across the pond, all we can say is  hahahaha!! And frankly, we were surprised that Nintendo got away with it.

Well, they haven’t - as the site is not owned by Nintendo! It was cunningly registered in China in 2009 by a Pan Zuo. And he has simply top-framed the whole Nintendo site into his site??

Not sure what happens if you login on this site?

Not sure why Sony haven’t taken this guy down? Or Nintendo for that matter?

The whole thing is weird - or hillarously funny. What do you think?

PS I we had to guess, our bet would be that the guy is trying to get a big payout from Sony for the site and in the meantime is giving Sony the finger!

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The highly reputable research company, Nielsen, did a big study in 2009 looking at how teens use media. And it was a real “reality check” as they found that most of the beliefs out there are actually wrong!

For example, teens watch more TV now than ever (and have not abandoned it for the internet, mobiles or game platforms!). In contrast, they watch LESS online videos than adults do (actually spend a whopping 35% LESS time doing that than 25-34 year olds, for example).

But it is the findings regarding game play that the Bitfood team were wanting to check out. Nielsen found, for example, that:

* Teens play video games, but are as excited about play-along music games and car-racing games as they are about violent ones: Just two of their top five most-anticipated games since 2005 are rated “Mature.”

* Video consumption, led by TV viewing, is the centerpiece of teen media consumption.

Console gaming comes in third “in a day in the life of” the average teenager in the US. These are averages, tho, and we are betting that game players actually spend more time using their consoles than these figures would suggest - but averaged out over all teens that figure goes down a lot.

* The myth is that teen gamers spend all their time playing “Mature” shooter games But in reality just two of the top five “most anticipated” games among teens since 2005 were rated Mature (Halo 3, and Grand Theft Auto IV)

* Teens account for just 23% of the console audience and less than 10% of PC game minutes.

* 83% of teens have at least one console in their home.

What do ya think? Does this describe teen use as you see it? We want to hear your view on these results (For example, the last 12 months has seen a massive increase in the involvement of females in the gaming world - Nielsen are suggesting the Wii has played a big role in broadening the population of those playing games. But we suspect that the increasing use of mobile game platforms in education has had a big impact as well)

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The Bitfood team have researched and written on this topic before. In fact we did several posts on the need for Sony to take a new look at the changes taking place in the “typical” gamer profile. One of these changes is the % of females playing games -  which has risen massively (if you are interested, the most up-to-date study can be found here) In fact, over 50% of PSP owners are female!

We began to push for new games to suit these new demographics early in 2009. But has Sony been listening?

To answer this, we decided to have a look at the games due for release over the next few months. ING usually have a good (but not, usually, complete)  list of upcoming PSP games. Their list shows some 40 games are due out over the next 6 months. So we decided to put together a quiz based on their list to see what you have the hots for! Your answers will show us whether Sony (or other game developers) have yet noticed that their buyer market has significantly changed!

Girls answer this quiz:

Guys answer this quiz:

Taking a look through the list, we suspect that the game developers are still behind the times and are ignoringboth the growing female population of players AND the fact that a lot of older players have joined the ranks of PSP gamers!

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The Game Developers Conference (2009) is currently being held in Austin.

Why should we PSP players care? Well, this conference has a big section about careers in game development. The seminar has been set up for students or anyone interested in learning how to build a career in the video game industry. The seminar will be held tomorrow - Friday, September 18 - at 9:30am-5:30pm.

If you live in Texas, and think you have a future in game development, then definitely get yourself along to the seminar.For the game developers among you that can’t get to the day long seminar, check out the website for the event.

Some of the topics being covered include:

  * step by step, how to effectively market yourself to game companies (by the  hiring manager for Obsidian Entertainment). 

* How to grow once you have your foot in the game industry door (by Cecelia Harris (Rainbow Studios), Michael Nichols (THQ/Vigil Games), Lindsey McQueeney (38 Studios and Big Huge Games)

How to start out: Do you need to work for a big corporation? Or even a small indie studio? Or can you go it on your own? by Matt Scibilia (Critical Mass Interactive Inc)

The fact is that many passionate game players end up wanting to be part of the gaming industry. This conference is all about showing  how we can do that!

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Y’know, when we browse around the web we get the sense that some PSP gamers are unhappy with the number of games being released! But, according to wikipedia there were 97 games released in 2008, and hundreds since 2004!

So we wondered - Have PSP gamers gone through all these games already?

If so, we wondered just how long does it take to finish a PSP game to the point of not ever want to play it again?

Now we realize that that depends on how good the game is. But still - except for the classics - there has to be a max period that a game will be played. We wanted to find out how long it takes to go from first play to “I’m want to sell/swap this @$# game”!  Let us know in the Quiz below:

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Our research has discovered that whilst Sony has made many things possible for PSP’s, there are those that suggest that most PSP’s are actually used ONLY for playing games.

We decided to find out for ourselves!

Here’s a quick quiz to see just how much mileage everyone gets from their PSP!

Thanks for participating

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Some pot smokers really like using their creativity, take this guy who’s smoking pot out of an Nintendo 64 controller! We don’t want to promote smoking pot here, but this guy’s N64 bong is really cool. Pass it on to us man!

Source: Sony PlayStation Portable Slim&Lite PSP

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Jack Thompson is a lawyer who likes sueing Rockstar Games and other developers of ‘violent’ videogames and every now and then we have a really good laugh with him. This time Jacky boy submitted gay porn in court documents because he believes the Florida Bar is collaborating against him with a gay activist attorney from Miami who owns a site called NationalGayNews. He gathered some pictures from adult entertainment advertisers in an attempt to show the court that the other lawyer was in the business of ‘distribution of hardcore porn to anyone of any age’. The judge, Adalberto Jordan of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, wasn’t amused.

The judge didn’t see the relevance of Jack Thompson’s evidence and the weird thing is that he made the pictures available for unlimited public viewing on the court’s docketing system. He placed them in the docket in this case without permission from the court. Thompson has time until October 5th to why he shouldn’t be referred to the Florida court’s review board. What’s bizarre is that Thompson upset the court that has to decide the case of if the Florida bar can stop him from practicing law.

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A few weeks ago someone from BlackLooks claimed that Resident Evil 5 is a racist game. The main character in the game (Chris Redfield) shoots a few black ‘zombies’ in one of the Resident Evil 5 trailers, and according to the writer this would lead to racism with youngsters.

Now Roberto Lovato, a writer of a political website called Alternet, claims that the whole Resident Evil serie contains racism. He refers to a mission in Grand Theft Auto Vice City where players have to kill Cubans. He also made a study that said that 56% of all human characters in games are white, only 22% are African American and on the bottom of the list are Latins with only 2%.

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At the Tokyo Game Show RPG king Square-Enix has released some new screenshots in high resolution of Final Fantasy XIII for Sony’s PlayStation 3. (more…)

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