death of a platform
dear psp,
it is lamentable that we will be parting ways so soon. for those six tens of millions who have plundered their pockets in pursuit of your euphoria, there has been much happiness. oh my what a precocious young device you were during the halcyon days of two thousand and five. you were the most powerful game in town, and displayed your prowess brilliantly what with the mind-bogglingly expansive four and three-tenths digital window laid into your countenance. i accompanied my younger sibling that early morning, during the hours and minutes prior to your momentous materialization in the land of the best buy. those parts of the brain not assigned to vital bodily function had, generally speaking, been reassigned to the tasks of slavering and envisioning how the hands and eyes and available brain cells might feel having submitted physically and entirely to the immersion you promised them. and it was not a hollow promise; you delivered.
but you also demanded. demanded forty for a game, and thirty for a movie. you were premier, elite, sophisticated, cutting edge, and avant-garde; we could only presume that this was, plain and simple, the price of admission for the person desiring superior entertainment. so we gave in; we would buy your games, but not your movies. you extracted from us maximally. and while in future iterations you slimmed and shaped your vessel, the new outward appearances which you flaunted under the names two and three thousand belied the changing nature of your enterprise. you had become fat, and felt justified by your own dominance. the ambition which gave birth to you was neglected, and finally forgotten.
and now it is too late. you are ancient, antiquated, mechanical, and antediluvian. your fate is not entirely dissimilar from that of the typewriter. your single function you perform magnificently; still better than even the newest kids on the block. nevertheless, this is inadequate, and you have been hopelessly outmoded. for you see, playstation portable, your raison d’etre was that last third of the name you chose, which was only important because it meant something else: ease.
and it is plain for all to see that, in the category of ease, you have been woefully outclassed. even in your most sliding, and slippery form, you are by comparison, grotesque in your largeness. you are importunate and arrogant as you continue to insist that both your carriage and your content are worthy of immoderate outlays, the latter frequently demanding ten times the copper required for its rough modern equivalent. your catalog is by new standards microscopic, and may only lay claim to the single merit of being ‘quality.’ but it is inaccessible and inconvenient. your interface is inflexible, extravagant, and unfriendly. you may not lay claim to even one hundredth the functionality of your replacement. but above all, you have forgotten what one foolish leader of men asserted during an uncharacteristically sage moment of bestial insanity: developers, developers, developers, developers. you made it impossible for the little man to get a piece of your action, and so he took his dreams, his hopes, and his code to the only platform which offered them a chance. EA, id, activision, konami, capcom, and square enix are now following the little man out the door as he gravitates toward greater opportunity. this is the root of your failure.
it was nice, if expensive and impractical.
andrew
