Sony culls the PSOne

After a brief struggle in Sony’s ‘outdated products’ wing, the PSOne was finally given its lethal injection today and buried next to the cassette Walkman and Aibo.

Unlike Sony’s robo-mutt, the redesigned version of the original SCPH-100 Playstation at least had a decent innings – it first shipped in 2000 and immediately found fame as a handy mini DVD player.

With scientists working all hours in the PS3 wing and the bulkier PS2 ready to inherit the title of entry-level Playstation, it seemed the right time for the old master to go.

Its games could still live a long and fruitful life. The PS2 can play all the original classics like Ridge Racer and Metal Gear Solid, and Sony seems keen to encourage a renaissance of old titles with its new consoles.

The PS3 will be backwards compatible, but the really interesting news for retro gamers is Sony’s promise of a downloads service for the PSP (story here).

The service will offer ‘selected popular Playstation titles from the past’ – which sadly rules out Britney’s Dance beat – and recent news on the PS3’s online Playstation Network Platform suggests that it’ll sport a similar downloading feature.

If you want a PSOne for posterity, Sony will still be promoting it as the stocks go down – you can pick them up on eBay for an incredible £5 too.

StuffTV