Sony has confirmed the end of their PSPgo portable entertainment system. After having launched on October 1st, 2009 in Europe and North America, and November 1st 2009 in Japan, the console never launched with a vast degree of success. The PSPgo offered a unique selling point as a portable device: all games were stored internally on 16GB of flash memory, meaning Sony"s UMD discs were not needed to play games.
However, this selling point was not sufficient to save the portable system from ceasing production. Sony has confirmed that the PSPgo production has ended, to a Japanese group known as Impress Watch. Sony have already promised to support the console with firmware updates, support, and repairs, but there will be no further stock of the portable device. Due to the high selling price of the PSPgo, it did not take off at the same rate as the original PSP family. Sony still intends to maintain the PSP-3000, the final variant of the original PSP, even now that the PSPgo is no longer in production.
Support for the PSP-3000 will likely continue until the release of the "NGP" (Next Generation Portable), as Sony has marketed it. The NGP appeared at the "Playstation Meeting" on January 27th, 2011, and is intended to release in Q4 2011. Images of a new PSP motherboard released in 2010 left people speculating that Sony may be intending to revise the PSPgo. This possibility has since been ruled out by the halted production of the handheld.