What exactly have Sony learnt? There are many lessons to be learnt from PSP Go, but having a download only hand-held can work. They just need to look at the iPhone and the app store for evidence of this. Two lessons to take from PSP Go:

1. Having a ridiculously high price when you have a competitor (in this case their own PSP3000) that does more for cheaper is not a good idea
2. If you're going to release something that is download-only, you need to support it. Even now, most PSP games aren't on the PS Store. Have a look at the plethora of games available for iPhone.

I wouldn't be entirely suprised if Sony announce a PSP2 Phone with Sony Erikkson at E3 as a DS/iPhone hybrid that bridges both markets.

However, the infrastructure is already there for a pure download only hand-held and has already been successfully acheived with the iPhone. It may have taken years for PC DD to get where it is today but it was always held back by technology. That's no longer holding back either consoles or hand-helds. In fact, it suits the hand-held scene better than the PC scene as it's less feasible to carry multiple game catridges/UMDs on the move than storing many DVDs in your house for PC gaming.

iPhone was more of a fashion statement at the start rather than a gaming machine, it's more inline with a portable computer than a hand-held gaming device as well. Can't do anything nice on it unless you jailbreak it either, but is very nice afterwards, only if it had flash support....... anyways, not a gaming device by default, it's a smart phone first and a gaming device fourth. Not to mention iPod has been on the market for many many many years that worked in conjunction with both Macs and PCs before they even introduced the App store.

I think it was price too, not the download only set up.  I own a psp-2000  and honestly, I havn't bought a umd game for it in over a year.  I've bought 6 downloaded games in that time.  That being said.  I will not pay retail prices for downloaded content.

I hope they learned from their mistakes.

Lol, I don't get it. "It was an experiment, we meant to fail so we could learn how not to fail in the future"

Besides, it wasn't lack of physical media that was holding PSPgo, it was pricing.

I hope not myself, otherwise, I could see a repeat of the NGage: a disaster in the wings...

Ahh yeah I doubt they got those kinds of results. More like, Sony knows what the consumer DOESN'T want. They should take some notes from the masters.

Yet even though it's a gaming device fourth, it's still managed to acheive a fairly sizeable chunk of the hand-held market. A lot of devs have put support into the iPhone. I remember reading in an interview of some smaller developers after GDC how they believed the core market was now on iPhone and the casual markets on PSP/DS (not saying I agree, just showing where dev support is). Also, gaming on the machine only really took off after the introduction of the app store. Personally, I think part of the reason it works so well on iPhone is the 3G and the ease of the app store.

Twice as many games were sold direct download to Apple devices last year than were sold directly by retailers for the PSP in the U.S. also arguably if the piracy arguments are anything to go by the majority of the PSP audience either doesn't give a crap about the platform or pirates digitally anyway.

Carrying around a game console plus additional games is quite a lot to move at once. Having it all together is much more convenient for those who actually use them whilst outside the house.

Whether they go 3G, wireless or cartridge based they still have a distribution cost. Its probably cheaper for a 3G module more flash than normal than distributing games via retail. This means more profit for them and more profit for publishers.