Set sail for fail. That's what the independent games chain Chips' managing director believes where the PSP Go is headed to. Don McCabe is of the (rather) strong opinion that the PSP Go will "fail miserably."

UK High Street retailers have said that while the PSP Go -- and the PSP series in general -- has a lot of exciting things coming for it, Sony's decision to opt for the decidedly non-retail friendly model of download-only games is a definite cause for concern. That, and the reportedly high price point.

Following the E3 unveiling of the PSP Go, Sony's new handheld got a lot of raps for its features, its looks, and its rather unfriendly price tag. As a result, two indie retailers in the UK have not registered a single pre-order for PSP Go, leaving their respective management teams to wonder if they're gonna stock the new hardware.

Reports coming in from the UK point out that one of the region's retail giants, Tesco, has caught the angry gaze of other members of the retail trade after allegedly launching a price slash campaign for most of its games in stock. Games were offered online for prices as low as GB£ 3.00 (US$ 6.05).

Popular titles such as Electronic Arts' The Sims 2 for the PC were offered for amazingly low prices, along with a number of PS2 games offered at GB£ 6.00 (US$ 12.05), DS and PSP games offered for GB£ 10.00 (US$ 20.05), and Xbox 360 titles at GB£ 15.00 (US$ 30.05).

Don McCabe of Chips frowned at the wake Tesco created with its major price cut campaign, but dutifully explained Tesco decision to "devalue" games. According to him, Tesco's non-food sales is steadily dwindling to a halt, and the chain's allocations for non-food items have also been reflecting that.

"They've reduced the amount of space that they give to DVDs now because they've effectively screwed that market up, and they've stopped doing CD singles as well," said McCabe. However, he believes that the move can have a detrimental effect on the publishers. He later explained:

If you devalue a product enough it turns consumers off and they stop buying. There's a risk that they could do that with games. There's a limit to how much the publishers out there will devalue their product. I'm sure they could go even lower, but this might not be with publishers' blessings.

Mastertronic's Garry Williams also reflected the same sentiments, stating that the effect could also hurt Tesco as well. "You have to ask the parties concerned what the long term benefits are. If [Tesco] did fund this [from their basket spend] they will have some serious repercussions from their High Street accounts," Williams concluded.

There have been no official comments made on Tesco's behalf as of press time.