PSP Disc Escapes Death

Don't fear for the fate of the humble UMD.

Despite Sony's best efforts and equivocating comments, the rumours just won't go away that the company has a new version of the PSP coming to replace the nearly-three-year-old handheld. But one feature of the platform that won't be going anywhere is its disc format.

In an interview with Pocket Gamer, Sony's John Koller admitted that Sony's proprietary UMD format has its share of problems, but he pooh-poohed the idea that the company would drop it.

"We'll never walk away from our base," Koller said in the interview. "Whether it's movies or game content, third parties have an incredible opportunity to utilize [UMD]."

As any PSP owners knows, the downside to using UMDs over cartridges is that it takes that much longer for the PSP to load data into memory. But Koller says that the rewards are there for diligent game makers.

"UMD is a unique medium to create games, and developers need to understand that when tackling the system," he told Pocket Gamer.

In recent months some have speculated that Sony is on the verge of announcing a revision of the PSP, with the most recent spate of rumours pointing to a slimmer unit much along the lines of the DS Lite update.

Sony has consistently side-stepped the rumours saying only that it has not announced anything yet. In the meantime, the company is preparing a new sortie of portable games, headed by a God of War spin-off coming exclusively to the PSP.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo