Editorial: PSP2 – UMD = Bad Idea.

Did you hear the latest joke?  An article on Kotaku quotes David Perry, chief creative officer at Acclaim, as he spouts out some kind of rumor about the PSP2 not only existing, but the idea that it actually does not have a UMD drive.Yeah, I know, I laughed pretty hard when I heard it too.  It’s a ridiculous idea that’s ridiculous enough to be true.  We’re talking about Sony here after all.  But keep in mind, this is very much still a rumor, even if David Perry says it to be true.  I’m sure it’s a rumor that will change considering a new PSP handheld that doesn’t have a UMD drive would be Sony committing hari-kari in the portable market.  And hari-kari is bad.  It’s not like Furi Kuri.  Not by a long shot!

Before we face fiction, let’s face facts.  The PSP isn’t in the shitter like most people think it is.  It’s sold 45 million units worldwide; just 1 million units short of the Wii, the current #1 console on Earth.  Albeit the Nintendo DS is just 2 million short of an insanely tall 100 million unit worldwide sales milestone and the Wii hasn’t been out as long as the PSP, but without relativistic terms like these, it’s still a fascinating feat to ship 45 million units of your product.  But of course “winning the war” is what all console makers want to do, so it’s not unexpected that Sony would want to unveil a brand new PSP instead of just another iteration (especially after the screen-filtering bug seen in their latest model.)

So let’s face fiction; the idea that the next PSP will be known as PSP2 and will not have a UMD drive.  For the sake of argument, let’s also assume the PSP2 is being released in order to beat the Nintendo DS in sales or, more realistically, take some Nintendo portable market share. Now obviously without a UMD drive they’ll need something for storage.  Let’s look at our options which, hopefully, will shed some light on why the idea of a UMD-less PSP is laughable.

• Carts: I doubt they’ll suddenly change format to carts because that’s just common sense.  Sony practically wants to say they invented disc media, they won’t change to something Nintendo has done since the beginning.
• Memory Sticks (Pro Duo) as central storage: They can’t go with memory sticks as central storage because the largest they can get is 8 gigs and anyone with a modded PSP could tell you that’s not enough to store more than 5 large games or 10 small games.  I’ve been told that if a Memory Stick was used as central storage, you would then store the games on your PC or PS3 and then transfer to the PSP2 when you want to swap out.   However if this was the case then piracy would be easier than the days of the Dreamcast.  Plus, forcing a PSP2 owner to actually have a Playstation 3 or PC in order to store the games is an insta-death to the system.  If the hardware can’t work alone, you can’t sell it alone.  If you can’t sell hardware alone, it won’t sell at all.
• Memory Sticks (Pro Duo) as game carts: Read above about piracy.  You can’t simply store the games on memory sticks and treat those like carts; it would be too easy for piracy to take over.  As indicated by the numerous firmware updates, Sony doesn’t want piracy.
• Tiny Hard Disc Drive: You do realize that the PSP is a portable system that moves and shakes a lot, right?  You also realize that hard disc drives have movable parts and shouldn’t be moved around and shaken a lot, right?  Then you already know why this option isn’t viable.
• Solid State Drive: This is what I believe will be the actual answer, which means one of two things.  Either Sony will wait until this is an affordable option (still a few years out) or they will inevitably allow the PSP2 to be incredibly expensive. Again, we’re talking about Sony here, so that’s not unbelievable.  However, we stated earlier that Sony wants to take a chunk of the Nintendo portable market.  Unfortunately, trying to sell an expensive gaming system will not do that.  The Nintendo DS’s success is built on selling the hardware cheaply, the software cheaply, and selling to the core/casual audience.  The PSP’s not-so-success was built on selling to the hardcore audience expensively.

What’s that you say?  Sony wants to take a chunk of Apple’s gaming market share?  Well sure, that seems viable.

• If the PSP2 wanted to sell to the crowd who bought the iPhone for the iPhone’s capabilities, it would need to be a good phone, a good music player, and a good internet browser.  (This won’t happen.)
• If the PSP2 wanted to  sell to the crowd who actually enjoy buying iPhone/iTouch games, then the PSP2 would consist of games created by the public that end up costing 5-15 dollars with a small commision for Sony.  (This won’t happen.)
• Oh yeah… and we’d have to assume all these iPhone/iTouch folks would be willing to buy the portable video game system based on the merits that it is simply a portable video game system.  (This won’t happen.)

Well gosh, with none of this happening, where’s the market share Sony can get?

D’oh, of course!  There’s the PSP market share!  Surely all those loyal to the PSP, buying up all those UMD games that won’t be transferable to the PSP2, will want to upgrade to the next big thing!  Surely they won’t mind carrying around both a PSP and PSP2 in order to play their portable game collection.  Surely the PS3 has proven that backwards compatibility isn’t necessary to increase sales!  Surely we exist in an imaginary world where Sony is making the wrong bets just to try and be the cool kids on the block again.  (Can you hear my eyes rolling yet?)

So, have I convinced you yet?  Do you believe the UMD-less PSP2 exists still?  Because I don’t think it does and I don’t think it will.  Sony may have made poor choices in the past and Sony may be crass enough to make more poor choices in the future, but I believe a UMD-less future for a PSP sequel in the current market with today’s technology is going to lead to 100% failure.