UPDATED PSP: Dave Perry Strikes Back At You, John Koller!
This is a bit of an odd one. Dave Perry has publicly challenged the word of Sony’s PSP head, John Koller, with regards to the PSP2. Perry recently stated as undeniable fact that Sony are developing the PSP2, and in fact doing so without the UMD drive from the original device. The general response to this in the gaming community was mostly one of wonder, with one or two whisperings of doubt on the part of Dave Perry’s knowledge of such a product’s existence. Kotaku posted the original story, with direct quotations from the renowned developer, before pondering if it’s too soon for a completely all-digital PSP platform in a time when digital distribution is the inevitable destination of the medium. As if there wasn’t enough talking about this across the Internet, in response, our very own Dave Kap wrote an editorial about why “it’s a ridiculous idea that’s ridiculous enough to be true”, before proceeding to give his thoughts on why this should turn out to be nothing but a red herring.
Today’s turn of events come in the form of a Twitteriffic remark direct from the mouth (or fingers) of Dave Perry himself, and it’s basically throwing the gauntlet right in Sony’s general direction. Dave says,
“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.”
I’ve not seen much to suggest that Dave Perry is wrong about this, and if so, history has only shown us that Sony usually likes to say one thing, and then do something else entirely. I’ve put an email in to John Koller as well as Sony’s PR department. Hopefully we hear something back soon, because to me this is getting exciting!
UPDATE: SCEA just got back to me with the following statement:
“We do not comment on rumors or speculations. What I can tell you is that both the UMD format and digital distribution are important to the PSP business model.”
I guess that could mean that they plan on having a second model of PSP concurrent with the existing model, or it could be me talking crap. You decide!!
Source: Dave Perry’s Twitter
Lots of ways this is can play out… some of which I forgot to mention in my article:
- Dave Perry might have bad information and John Koller will announce that the next PSP iteration will support UMD games.
- John Koller may just ignore Dave Perry and blackball Acclaim from Sony resources for calling him out.
- We might get an official announcement that the next PSP won’t have UMD!
- Sony may not want to directly comment on the next PSP because it’s still being built. Without complete specs and, possibly, without a final decision about UMD availability, John Koller doesn’t want to give an official word yet.
- The next PSP may have a UMD mini-usb drive. Think of this as Sony’s version of the Macbook Air’s DVD drive that is a separate, usb-connected drive. This gives old UMD owners the ability to transfer the games onto the PSP’s drive or it simply may be required to play games. (Imagine the drive attaching to the PSP2 via a shell.)
- (Most likely) John Koller uses PR magic to get around Dave Perry’s challenge.
This is going to be fun to watch. :)