The PlayStation Portable 2: Make it like the PSPgo, but Not Awful

The PSP has not been a failure, as many have proclaimed it to be. As a multimedia device it does everything well, but nothing really well, and that's where the faults lie. Some fantastic games have come out of the system: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Patapon, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. The device is certainly portable, it's sleek, it has the PlayStation branding to give it credibility. Yet it has been deemed a disaster by a lot of people: Sony can fix this platform if they try hard enough. No more iterations of the PSP are needed, we need the PSP, and it needs to:

Keep The PSPgo's Design, But Add A Touch Screen

The PSPgo, unlike the PSP, was a failure, and it deserved to be. It offered nothing of any real significance except no UMD storage, and that was its major shortcoming. The PSPgo excelled in one thing, though: the design was great, just flawed in some key ways. If you looked at it, you would expect a touch screen, but nope. This was acceptable; after all, it was simply a new model of the existing PlayStation Portable, a touch screen would complicate things. But in a new version, a capacitive touch screen display, preferably slightly larger than the Go's screen is essential. These screens can look amazing- have you seen the retina display? And when the controls are hidden and the screen is all you see, a touch screen makes complete sense. Games could utilize it or discard it- a touch screen would not be the focal point of the system like it is on the iPod Touch or DS. It would simply enhance the experience when you needed it: flicking through the XMB, tapping a video to bring up controls, typing on the virtual keyboard instead of awkwardly navigating to each letter with the d-pad.

Have Two Analog Nubs

This has been a universal complaint, coming from the most hardcore gamers to people who might spent twenty minutes on it a week. The PSPgo infuriated a lot of people because it looked designed to house two analog nubs. Instead, the select/start buttons was placed there. Again: a fault of the PlayStation Portable not being ready to produce a second version. The PSPgo, in many ways, is the PSP1.5. The slider, the obvious spot for two analog nubs, the lack of UMD storage - everything points to a PSP 2 that will look very similar to the Go.

Ditch the UMD, Keep Physical Games

The PlayStation Store-only idea was downright bad. People like buying used games, people like loaning games to friends and people like just looking at the game cases. The 3DS is using game cartridges similar to the DS, and it's capable of holding a large amount of storage, enough to fit MGS3 and The Ocarina of Time. The UMD was a good idea, but it simply takes too much room, and the design of the PSPgo needs to be kept; the 3DS uses small, compact disks, and the new PSP should as well. They might as well keep releasing the games on the PlayStation store, maybe make a "PSP 1 Classics" and "PS2 Classics" to heighten interest, both selling the games at very discounted prices.

Get Good Games Right Away

The PSP has been out for years, and is still struggling to have a big collection of really good games. The 3DS is launching with some fantastic games, and more will surely come soon. The PSP2 needs to deliver a great gaming experience immediately: bundle it with a game, or add a disk of various game demos. We want Uncharted for PSP, we want some PS2 ports, we want new and original games that will be franchise-makers.

Above all, we want a device that we can use on a regular basis and enjoy using.