http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/psp.jpg



According to Acclaim developer David Perry, the new Playstation Portable won’t feature a UMD disc drive.

“I hear Sony FINALLY has the PSP 2. And thank goodness, they’ve removed the stupid battery-sucking UMD disc drive. I’m excited!” Perry wrote on both his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Whether or not he has actually seen the rumored new Playstation Portable himself is not clear. He may just be hearing rumors through the development community. Ditching the UMD wouldn’t be a surprise as it would cut costs and make the device slimmer. It fits with the other rumor, that the new PSP will be a slider, but have the same guts as its predecessor.

http://kotaku.com/5160033/rumor-psp-2-wont-have-umd-drive

http://kotaku.com/5160320/perry-psp-2-is-real-could-hit-this-fall
The a UMD-free Playstation Portable 2 is indeed real and could hit as early as this fall, David Perry, chief creative officer at Acclaim, told Kotaku today.

"I spoke to a developer who is working on it right now," he said. "I know this developer is already working on it, so that means they have a prototype. That would sound like a fall release to me."

Perry said he is excited about the news.

"I've been pounding on Sony for a long time to make the Playstation Portable relevant and not to let Apple stroll away with the portable game market," he said. "Look at what Apple is doing now. Why are so many investors investing in Apple game development? Trying to pitch a PSP game to investors right now is brutal."

The idea of a UMD-free Playstation Portable begs the question of how games will be loaded onto the device.

Perry believe it will be done through digital downloads and direct connect to a computer.

The ultimate goal, he says, is for the Playstation Portabel to go 100 percent digital. Not only would that allow Sony to have a more direct connection with their customers and get a larger piece of the sales pie, it would essentially kill the used game sales market.

As a stop gap to keep retailers like GameStop interested in selling the Playstation Portable 2, which they make little to no money on, Perry thinks that Sony would at least initially sell games for the device on Memory Sticks, as they currently do with some movies, or with pre-paid cards.

As for backwards compatibility, it stands to reason, Perry says, that all current PSP titles would show up on Playstation's online store.

While Perry insists that the PSP2 is real, and already been developed for, a lot of the details about distribution and release are more speculative on his part.

It does make sense that games will one day go digital only, it seems inevitable. But is now too soon for something like the PSP?

2/27/2009 3:38:21 PM

As long as the firmware is hackable I'm game.

2/27/2009 3:51:50 PM

^amen

2/27/2009 5:49:35 PM

I'm interested to see what Nintendo's answer is to this.

2/27/2009 7:02:43 PM

something woefully underpowered

zing

2/27/2009 8:51:01 PM

That picture's been floating around the web for years, btw. It's fan-created and has nothing to do with what the real PSP2 will look like.

Which kinda sucks.

2/27/2009 8:55:12 PM

well that fucking sucks
its the first i'd seen it and i got all happy in my pants

3/1/2009 10:48:20 AM

Honestly, as awesome as that looks, that control scheme would suck balls.

Did you ever spend any time playing a GBASP? It had controls like that all cramped together in a square like that and after about 10 minutes my hands started cramping up like crazy. Personally I'd like to see the next psp have the ability to accept a bluetooth controller (one like say...the dualshock3 perhaps) as an input.

3/1/2009 6:16:46 PM

Quote :

"Why are so many investors investing in Apple game development?"

what a fucking stupid statement, that area is a gold mine

3/1/2009 11:11:52 PM

I believe that was a rhetorical question

3/2/2009 12:14:29 AM

yea gotta stop skimming stuff so fast

i don't think the psp will ever be prominent i keep wanting to use mine but the only thing i come back for is Patapon

they kept releasing slimmer models with different color schemes combined with overpriced games ($40 for a portable game?)

i couldn't even watch youtube / porn videos on it and i certainly wasn't calling up friends on skype

if they come out with something new they better make lots of changes

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 3:28 AM. Reason : .]

3/2/2009 3:16:21 AM

Quote :

"they kept releasing slimmer models with different color schemes combined with overpriced games ($40 for a portable game?)"

how... how is that different from what Nintendo does?

3/2/2009 8:05:47 AM

Well admittedly, the DS games are slightly cheaper. New high end DS games are $35 .

3/2/2009 10:58:56 AM

Quote :

"Personally I'd like to see the next psp have the ability to accept a bluetooth controller (one like say...the dualshock3 perhaps) as an input."

doesn't that ruin the concept of portability?

3/2/2009 11:56:37 AM

If they aren't using UMD I wonder what they will use.

For them to rely purely on digital downloads isn't a good idea. This eliminates the kids begging the parents to buy them a game from :insert retail store:

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 1:41 PM. Reason : ...]

3/2/2009 1:39:26 PM

the DS serves its purpose - it just plays games . . . that has always been Nintendo's philosophy

The PS3 is a wonderful media center but the PSP falls flat on its ass with its features

people who are looking for a portable device that will do lots of things for them are going to go with the iPhone

i don't know if i should like the idea of digital downloads - i like the idea of cutting down on used game sales to help the industry but it doesn't help my wallet

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 2:47 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2009 2:46:22 PM

Quote :

"doesn't that ruin the concept of portability?"

Well I didn't suggest that would be the only means of control.

Quote :

"For them to rely purely on digital downloads isn't a good idea."

For them it's a great idea. That's the only true way to combat piracy. I'd imagine this generation of consoles will be the last we see that use physical distribution of media. They'll still use download codes sold in boxes to sell in stores, but disc based games are going to be a thing of the past very shortly.

Quote :

"The PS3 is a wonderful media center"

You and I must have vastly different ideas about the definition of 'wonderful'.

====

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/developer-backs-up-psp-4000-chatter

Quote :

"The next iteration of Sony's PSP handheld will feature a sliding screen, will no longer carry a UMD drive and will allow shoulder button-only games to be played when the screen is in its 'closed' position. "

3/2/2009 10:13:26 PM

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/30/rumor-psp-go-revealed-in-june-issue-of-qore/



Meh.

5/30/2009 1:18:06 PM

16 gigs internal flash memory is pretty sweet.

Anything mentioned about hardware power yet?

5/30/2009 3:00:14 PM

this isn't a PSP2 or anything, it's a PSP minus the UMD drive. pretty much all PSP games are going to be available digitally through the PSN store from now on.

5/30/2009 3:59:50 PM

BUT DOES IT AUTO-INSTALL!?!?!?!?!?!

5/30/2009 5:38:30 PM

^ i see what you did there

5/30/2009 9:48:12 PM

5/31/2009 1:24:41 PM

Bump

1/26/2011 8:08:37 PM

Should be announced for reals in about 5 hours.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/reminder-well-be-live-from-sonys-tokyo-event-tonight-at-1am-e/
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/26/the-psp2-so-far/

1/26/2011 8:10:31 PM

you can get used umds/games cheap at gamestop, if its all downloadable content like the GO its going to blow.

1/26/2011 11:54:23 PM

I didn't need to wait until after 1am to tell you that there would be no way there would be physical media for the psp2. It should be pretty obvious the go was the test drive for an all downloadable system.

And here it is...

Quote :

"Specs include a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution, dual analog sticks (not nubs as on the current generation), 3G, WiFi, GPS, a rear-mounted touchpad, the same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the PlayStation Move, an electronic compass, and cameras on both the front and back. Available this holiday season. Wait... what?!"

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/the-sony-psp2/

I'm kinda eh about it now. I can't imagine how much I won't care a year from now. I don't see the point in announcing it so far out. I wonder if they had to delay it because they were using the same signing keys as the ps3 and psp and now they're having to actually put some security in the thing.

1/27/2011 3:50:33 AM

^Ummm, pretty sure it does have physical media. I think the Go "test drive" taught them that gamers still want both.

Quote :

"* l New Game Medium NGP adopts a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for NGP software titles. Taking advantage of the flash memory feature, this innovative card can store the full software titles plus add-on game content or the game save data directly on to the card. By adopting flash memory based card, SCE will be able to provide game cards with higher capacity in the future, allowing developers to store more game data to deliver rich and immersive games."

1/27/2011 8:57:13 AM

Quote :

"something woefully underpowered that will cost less, sell more, and make bank for nintendo zing"

1/27/2011 9:02:41 AM

^^Oh, well yeah, I meant disc based physical media, of course. Even the Go had a slot for a memory stick. But yay for more proprietary memory sticks from Sony. Those have worked out so well for them in the past.

1/27/2011 9:09:10 AM

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/27/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sony-s-ngp.aspx

Quote :

"You might be wondering how much something like this will cost…and you’re going to have to keep wondering. Sony’s remaining mum about pricing, but SCE worldwide studio president Shu Yoshida did tell us that pricing has been on Sony’s mind since development on the NGP started in 2008. “Hopefully when we announce the price, people will see the proper value," he told our own Phil Kollar."

Translation: "This thing's gonna be expensive as shit, get over it."


It does sound awesome though.

1/29/2011 11:46:51 AM

FIRST RULE OF OWNING A PSP: never ever ever update your firmware.

1/30/2011 9:55:13 PM

Reasons to buy a handheld game system:
- Small and portable
- Relatively cheap
- Offers unique gameplay a console can't do (touch screens, etc.)

The NGP/PSP2:
- Not pocket sized. Still portable, I guess.
- I'm not paying $400+ for anything but a PC.
- Dual analog is great, but not unique. The touch screen on the back is interesting, but I can see that only being used well in 1 or 2 games. It's no 3D screen.

Sony really hasn't learned from history. I can see this generation following the same patterns as the DS/PSP battle all the way back to the GameGear/GameBoy battle.

Nintendo's handheld might not be as powerful, but the superior software and lower cost will more than make up for it.

1/31/2011 3:05:31 PM

The one thing about the NGP is that, for the first time since the PS1, Sony is using more or less off the shelf components for the CPU/GPU instead of some proprietary shit. Basically 4-core versions of the same processors a lot of existing and soon to be released smart phones will be using. This means it should be relatively easy to develop for, and while it'll probably be pretty expensive at first, costs should drop rather rapidly.

1/31/2011 4:50:31 PM

Quote :

"- Offers unique gameplay a console can't do (touch screens, etc.)"

I disagree with this being a benefit to a portable (or any) gaming system. I'll take standard controls over gimmicks like touch screens and 3D crap any day of the week.

I guess it's just too much to ask for, but my perfect portable system would be small enough to take with you, powerful enough to run modern games, and have HDMI out and the ability to be controlled with a bluetooth controller. That way when you get it home you could plug in into your TV, grab a dualshock3 and continue your game on the bigscreen.

1/31/2011 8:39:57 PM