First, I have two words for Sony, Square-Enix, and whomever else figured this out:

THANK YOU.

Amidst the bombardment of anti-climaxes at E3, Final Fantasy VII was finally released onto the PlayStation Network for North America. With that, last week’s Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid release, I think SCEA’s finally realizing what they’d understoon in Japan for years: If you release it, people will buy it (instead of pirate it).

Along side this release came a new media manager application for the PSP. For those like me who don’t own a PS3, we’ve had to rely on the Sony Media Manager software for PC to back-up and manage our files. Given the official announcement of the PSP Go, it’s understandable that they’ll need to revamp that software.

First impression of Media Go: Pain in the ass if you’re transitioning from Media Manager. I’d hoped that while installing Media Go, it would have the insight to search for the Media Manger installation and at least give the option to import all media and back-up files into the Media Go installation. Nope. By default, it only associates your My Documents folder.

Here’s where it becomes a chore: Media Manager gave each of your memory sticks its own profile and folder. I have three memory sticks myself (1GB, 4GB, and 8GB), thus I have three folders filled with back-up files. I now have to search each one out, determine which files are redundant, and then move them into whatever folder I now have set for all of Media Go’s library. I sound like a whiney bitch, sure, but as a consumer, you’d think that Sony would have realized people who have been faithful subscribers to their PlayStation Store service would appreciate a smooth transition into their new platform.

Once you jump through those hoops, it’s all gravy. I like having one library as opposed to seperate memory card profiles because it’s much easier to organize. It also makes sense since all media is associated to one PlayStation account anyway. You can still use Media Manager to manage your files, if you choose, but you will need Media Go in order to access the PlayStation Store. And frankly, once you get used to Media Go, there isn’t much incentive to keep Media Manager around.

This is not an ad.

Another service they’ve added is the ability to buy/rent movies and TV shows to watch on the PSP. It’s not a bad idea, but they’ll need to work on the price points. Buying a movie will cost you around $15 or you can rent for around $4. Depending on the movie, you can buy the full DVD for most of what they have available for about the same price. UMD movies that are still in circulation are as cheap as $5 brand new. And $4 is hardly competitve for what I can get renting the DVD from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

Television episodes aren’t as bad, running about $2 per episode. It’s a nice way to grab an episode or two for watching on a trip or a lunch break (if you can’t access Hulu or Crunchy Roll). If nothing else, the price may be worth me avoiding the hassle of ripping and converting my own files.

Well done, Sony. I’m still one who prefers tangible media over digital distribution, but when you start getting it right, I can be swayed to at least get on board.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 am and is filed under Games, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.