Although only available in Europe
Go!Messenger was a free Instant Messenger program for the PlayStation Portable. It was jointly developed by SCEE and BT. It was introduced to the system with the 3.90 firmware update and the Go!Messenger icon was added under Network. PSP users could communicate with PC users through Go!Messenger if the PC was running BT Softphone 2.
The software was announced on August 22, 2007 by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe at the 2007 Leipzig Games Convention, and was released on February 29, 2008. It allowed the Go!Cam to be used for video conferencing and voice chat.
When the service was functional, Go!Messenger allowed users to:
Send Instant Messages to each other
Video Chat with the Go!Cam
Send Video and Voice Messages to other PSP users
The only video of it I can find it's from 2008
Amazing that this app is so like what you can do on Discord and other apps today. The reason it failed was a lack of users.
This was a posted on eurogamer dot net that told of its demise
"The Go!Messenger service will be withdrawn by BT and Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEE) from 31 March 2009," a statement read.
"Although Go!Messenger brought innovative communications features to the PSP community, the service has not developed the base of users that we were hoping for."
Introduced in the 3.90 firmware for PSP this time last year, Go!Messenger is a free instant messaging program compatible with the Go!Cam for video chat.
In a brief FAQ about the shutdown, Sony elaborated: "Although it proved a popular concept, achieving a significant number of registrations, it didn't gain the number of regular users that BT and SCEE were aiming for."
The platform holder also said that "future products" will be released to take advantage of the Go!Cam.
So what finally took advantage of the GO!Cam? Better known as the PSP camera, just check out this video.
