Sony may drop UMD for retail PSP game
updated 02:05 pm EDT, Mon April 13, 2009
Sony May Drop UMD for PSP
Sony may drop its in-house UMD optical format with the release of Patapon 2 if an insider claim proves true. Citing a historically reliable source, Ars Technica says the new music game will only be downloadable and that any retail copies will simply have a coupon with a code to buy the game online. Buyers would also have a financial incentive to avoid the store as the game would cost only $15 online versus $20 in a shop.
The move would be a radical departure for Sony, which has continued to push UMD as a format even as Memory Sticks and other flash memory eclipsed UMD in storage while adding support for writing data. Sony has made classic PlayStation 1 games and a handful of PSP-specific games made available online, but has generally avoided making any major releases strictly downloadable.
Making a switch to downloaded games would remain consistent with Sony's own statements that it plans to shift more to online for games and corroborates more than one rumor which has hinted at a UMD-less PSP that may also have a slider design and a touchscreen.
Sony has declined to either confirm or deny Patapon 2's medium switch but says only that "nothing's been announced" to date.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2007
Give Sony a big failure
for not allowing writable UMD media. That's the biggest waste of space ever. I'm sure there would have been a lot of pirating, but that drive was so compact and would have been fine for storing stuff on. Just grab a bunch of discs and go. Fortunately there are large Pro Duo sticks (16 GB) for a somewhat tolerable price of $85 and that can store a fair amount of data. Sony should toss the UMD and put a pair of Pro Duo slots in that spot.