I admit it. I'm a sucker for toy gadgets. I love my digital playthings. It's an odd obsession for one such as myself, because I've never been terribly big on actually playing the darn things. I've owned basically every major portable (even a Neo-Geo Pocket Color) throughout the years, but I don't play them nearly as much as my consoles. It's gotten worse as years progress with the casual shift affecting portable game tastes even more than consoles. Thanks to that fact, I rarely play my DS at all now. In fact, outside of the random Mario Kart DS (better than Mario Kart Wii) and New Super Mario Bros. multiplayer sessions, I haven't touched it at all. Likewise, I decided to pass on the DSi. That decision echos a little bit of sadness in my heart, because I was messing around with my sisters and love the flip book app. I used to draw flip books as a kid, so it seems right up my alley. Sadly, I can't swallow the cost of yet another DS for one free app. I've owned every single Nintendo portable ever released (even Virtual Boy). Being able to come to such a decision makes me wonder if I have still have any future with Nintendo portables. What a sad thought.

Then there's the iPhone. Ahh, the iPhone. There's one potential purchase I've mulled around in my head for what seems a million times. The gadget whore side of me wants to get one for all the brainless apps, and the gamer part of me screams "HELL NO" every time the thought crosses my mind. As a phone, I know it would suck hard because of three letters: "AT&T." As a gaming platform, it's against everything I enjoy because there are no tactile controls at all, yet I've still considered it just because I'm a sucker for digital toys. I almost tried to compromise and get a iPod Touch, but never committed. I don't see what I'd play on it. I like the feeling of buttons under my fingers. I don't like having to look at a screen and make sure my hands are settled on the invisible "virtual buttons," and I don't like having to cover the screen with my hands to play. Touch screens are fine and dandy for lots of game designs, but they can't and shouldn't be used to do everything. Being the sucker I am, an iPhone purchase is still never beyond possibility, but I would be very unlikely to seriously play anything on it.

""Sony is using piracy as an excuse to justify why they chose to make the PSP Go's battery irremovable, but how many people actually used the often-spoke-of-but-rarely-used 'Pandora battery' to hack their PSPs? Most people just bought those things to unbrick the failed attempts.""

Naturally, I should be a PSP fan, right? I've owned one since March 2005. I've had an on again, off again relationship with it. At first, I hated the way developers only seemed to make gimpy portable versions of existing PS2 titles. Handhelds are for pick up and play experiences, which suits my love for arcade style gameplay. Arcade titles are satisfying in quick bursts, and I have a short attention span. Waiting a minute and a half to get through all the company logos just to load the title screen is a tad extreme. I should have been playing over a minute ago. Fortunately, things started to get a bit better once games like Ultimate Ghouls & Ghosts came out. PSP still isn't perfect, but it was getting a lot better.

Now it looks like Sony is getting ready to screw it all up. When the PSP Go was dropped at E3, nobody was impressed (or surprised). The price was stupidly high, the screen was smaller, and you get absolutely no physical media (or rights) to go with your game purchases. Its like a half-assed relaunch without actually changing anything for the better. They should have just called it "PSP 2," upped the hardware a bit and added a second analog stick, but no. We get a half-assed successor instead. Still, I kinda' wanted one because it looks cool. Yes, I know I have a problem. Well, that passing thought is over now. Sony finally made one mistake I can't overlook. They made the battery irremovable.

This is a trend we can thank Apple for, and I've hated it from day one. All the way back to 1989, from the Game Boy to the present, we have had removable batteries. I felt a little ill when we dropped the alkaline variety for proprietary batteries because I had a bad feeling that this was the next step, and here we are. Sony is using piracy as an excuse to justify why they chose to make the PSP Go's battery irremovable, but how many people actually used the often-spoke-of-but-rarely-used "Pandora battery" to hack their PSPs? Most people just bought those things to unbrick the failed attempts. It was Sony's Swiss cheese firmware the hackers kept getting into. More likely, the real reason they locked up the battery is that Sony wants us to look at the PSP as a disposable machine. Now our digital-only purchases are tied to a console that has a finite lifespan. You can't replace the battery, and when it goes you're either going to have to buy another one, or get the successor and hope to be able to transfer your purchases. Either way, locking the battery is a great way to keep you on the hook.

I'm still pissed that you can't replace the batteries in the wireless PS3 controllers. Microsoft and Nintendo made the right call there. Gaming handhelds aren't like mp3 players. You can't toss one every other year (or more) and replace it with a new model because the battery wore out. At least that's not how it works in my head. If the future of portable gaming is disposable hardware, then I can see my interest fading fast. My pocketbook can't take it.