Earthworm Jim and MDK creator Dave Perry claimed the other day that the PSP2—yes, it’s in development—will not have a UMD drive. That’s good news, seeing as though UMD is terribly slow; eliminating it from any future PSP design would both 1) cut costs and 2) shrink the device’s footprint by a not-insignificant amount. And while Sony may deny that any such redesign is in the works, Perry insists that’s he’s right.
Perry posted on his Twitter account the following:
John Koller is publically questioning my post about PSP 2. So I confirmed with Top PSP 2 developers. John, state that PSP 2 WILL have UMD.
If this were a professional wresting feud, Perry would be standing in the middle of the ring, yelling, “John, I’m calling you out!” Then the lights would dim and John would smash Perry with a chair.
Internet speculation suggests that Sony will announce and/or debut the next version of the PSP at E3, which is in May. I think we’ll be there at E3.
via Kotaku
Eliminate the UMD drive and you eliminate backwards compatibility. That would royally piss me off and prevent me from picking up a PSP2, since I’ve bought a few PSP games.
It would be fine to not make any UMD games for PSP2 – put them on memory sticks, downloads, whatever – but put the drive on there anyways so people can play their old games. The PSP doesn’t have to get any thinner, its fine now.
It’s not like Sony’s going to rip your old PSP out of your hands if you buy a new one.
Would you travel with two PSPs?
Or, put another way, if you had an iPod Classic with 160 GB of storage but wanted an iPod Touch so got the best offering they have (32 GB, right?) – if you were going on a trip, which would you take? Would you want all the pretty features of the new one and not have all your music, or would you prefer to have all your music on the Classic? Would you really take both?
Maybe that’s not the best example, but hopefully you see what I’m saying. It can’t be that hard to put the drive on there…and I really don’t think the thing needs to get any thinner. And the more I think about it, the more I agree with Cyber Akuma’s post below – I want some physical storage.
I agree 100%. I couldn’t foresee most company’s screwing over the past generation. They generally always offer some sort of back wards compatibility. Hopefully they’re figure out some way of ripping old UMD’s into a some sort of file. But, this is Sony and for the most part they really don’t give a fuck about back wards compatibility. IE The god damn PS3 lol.
I almost wouldn’t be surprised if they continued to pedal the PSP along with the PSP2. Eh like the PS2-PS3 style?
PERRY the PLATIPUS what are you doing?
I hope they use SOME kind of physical medium then.
I don’t see the PSP2 possibly using anything other than Memory Sticks for storage, and the prices on those things are insane, not looking forward to a DD-only handheld if the storage costs over $100 for 16GB.
If they have 32 GB of built in storage with memory stick also available I think it could work as DD-only. Granted that might also make the thing cost $400, although if it isn’t coming out for a year the price of SSDs might have come down sufficiently to make it work.
I am not a fan of the idea of a system being DD-only to begin with.
I have no problems with the option of physical media OR DD, but not DD-only.
The question that comes to mind, is whether we are talking about another PSP iteration (PSP-1000, PSP-2000, PSP-3000, and now a PSP-4000), or whether we are seeing a new generation altogether, PSP2-????. I can’t see Sony dropping the UMD on another PSP(1) iteration. It wouldn’t make sense. But I can certainly see Sony dropping the UMD if this is going to be a generational leap. I am, of course, hoping it is a generational leap, and not just another iteration.