Sony ditches UMD conversion plans for PSP Go

[Leo_A]

You're still saying Sony will discontinue the UMD format? I hope we're talking about the eventual successor to the PSP1000/2000/3000/Go line then?

If not, you're crazy to think they're going to just up and ignore 56 million system owners or expect them all to go buy a ~$100 16gig Memory Pro Duo so they can start downloading all their titles. Sony doesn't want to leave physical media behind that badly that they'd abandon the vast majority of their userbase or risk alienating so many customers.

The UMD format is here to stay until this generation of Sony's portables is discontinued. It will coexist with downloadable versions of PSP titles. To suggest anything else doesn't make any sense.

Even with the PSP's successor, I expect it will still be a bit too early for Sony to take an all DLC approach. I fully expect that the PSP's successor will have some form of physical media with a larger capacity than UMDs.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey gaiz

There's no reason they can't have two varieties of the system, at least for a while: One for people who want to hold onto digital media for as long as possible, and the benefits of that (BC, homebrew, less-lethal launcher capability), another for people who want the advantages of going digital (not needing to carry around a sack of games, longer battery life, better availability of games without retail shenanigans, a buy-in to the way forward).

Anybody who continues to invest in UMD had better hope they can get a stock of UMD-equipped machines in the future, though, because there is a dead send in sight for what always was a niche, underperforming format.

Whether or not this particular idea fails is irrelevant in the big picture of where gaming is going to. I considered myself anti-digital-only but it's sure better for all the market players for me to buy the game online, directly supporting the content creators, than trying to scour eBay for the lowest price game and hope I know all about the CD key and activations (and on top of that hoping that I don't get shafted by the seller; I'd rather get a digital-only copy than somebody's nasty coaster).


If not, you're crazy to think they're going to just up and ignore 56 million system owners or expect them all to go buy a ~$100 16gig Memory Pro Duo so they can start downloading all their titles.
Was Nintendo crazy to drop NES support from the SNES? Or GBA support from the DSi?

16 GB memory sticks aren't as expensive as you think, either, and dropping in price ($67 on Amazon; possibly cheaper elsewhere). UMDs are useless for most applications whereas Memory Sticks are a razor-blade and razors situation for Sony - except they don't have to sell anything under cost. A nice incentive from Sony to help encourage buyers to feel locked into buying other devices that use them, from PDAs and PMPs to the Vaio and even Sony's professional digital cameras, right up to the $2500+, ~24MP Sony Alpha 900), but also a convenience. After all, with the PSP many people are already buying large Memory Sticks, and with bandwidth being where it is, it's not inconceivable that Sonly will allow selective downloading as Steam does. Today, $100 should currently buy you a nearly state-of-the-art 32GB e-SATA Throttle hybrid USB drive, and possibly with some money left over.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Don't underestimate the now Sony's ability and capacity to abandon customers...

[Leo_A]

Was Nintendo crazy to drop NES support from the SNES? Or GBA support from the DSi?


I'm not sure I follow. I was talking about the Playstation Portable, not the Playstation Portable 2 or whatever the successor will be called. Your examples don't apply, I never talked or even hinted that I thought the UMD format would still be utilized by Sony with the PSP's successor. What I did state is Sony would be crazy to stop supporting the vast majority of their PSP users by deciding to switch all PSP game support to a download only model.

What some of you seem to be suggesting is akin to Nintendo changing the game media when they introduced the top loading NES or the mini SuperNes in the latter stages of their lifespans, breaking compatibility with 99% of their established userbase despite it being the same hardware. Isn't happening folks, UMD is here to stay until Sony lays the Playstation Portable to rest and moves on to their next generation handheld. Then, who cares what happens to the UMD format.



16 GB memory sticks aren't as expensive as you think, either, and dropping in price ($67 on Amazon; possibly cheaper elsewhere).


Going for $100 used at GameStop, so I felt safe in saying approximately $100. Either way, it's a high price to pay for expecting every PSP owner to buy expensive memory expansions for their handhelds just so they have room to download games, which is once again why the UMD format is safe as long as the Playstation Portable remains on the marketplace.

UMD game releases are here to stay as long as the PSP line remains on the marketplace. And I predict we'll have some higher capacity form of physical media when the PSP's successor hits the marketplace one of these days.

[kupomogli]

BluMD(BMD.) The new UMD with 50GB of space.

[Icarus Moonsight]

...That actually is a marketable media for movies! This time we didn't completely boof the pooch! LOL

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm not sure the content downloaded onto a PSP Go would be completely barred from the second hand market. I realize that when a store like GameStop takes in a console they'll clear the data on it first before putting it on the shelf. But, then again, GameStop also has an entire library of games per console to take advantage of. The existence of the Go is more or less a non-issue for a retailer. I can imagine a situation where GameStop (or the nearest equivalent) starts to pay out cash/credit for this thing based on what is actually on it and likewise does a similar calculation to figure out the price for it on resale.

This kind of calculation is probably too cumbersome for a chain like GameStop but if there's money to be made I wouldn't be shocked if this is the kind of situation that ends up with Sony dragging a retailer into court to fight it out. DRM and EULAs have not gotten extensive testing in the courts and should this happen it might provide new rules that really change the score one way or the other.

[Rob2600]

I guess I am in the minority here and have never seen the iPod as a primarily gaming device.

According to Apple itself during its event last month, the iPhone/iPod Touch is a superior gaming platform compared to the DS and PSP:

Cnet News Live blog: Apple updates iPods, Jobs takes stage (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10323196-37.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody)

9/11/09, San Francisco, CA: At Apple's special event, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Philip W. Schiller called out the iPhone and iPod Touch as superior gaming platforms to both the DS and PSP. As proof of his assertion, Schiller first pointed to the price of games, which top out around $9.99 on the iPhone/iPod Touch OS, but run as high as $59.95 on the DS and $69.95 on the PSP. "That's too expensive," he declared.

Second, the executive pointed to a slide showing the 21,178-title catalog of iPhone/iPod Touch "Game & Entertainment Titles" dwarfing those of the DS (3,680 titles) and the PSP (607 titles).

Schiller also believes that, compared to those of the iPhone and iPod Touch, PSP and DS games are "not a lot of fun." Although iPhone/iPod Touch game designers, such as Doom Resurrection's John Carmack, say the Apple device's lack of buttons are a hindrance, Schiller contends the opposite. As proof, he brought out Electronic Arts' Travis Boatman to show off the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Madden NFL 10, which went on sale today. The game lets players draw their plays onto the screen, like the titular sportscaster's Telestrator, and then execute them with a touch of the button.

Preceding Boatman was Ubisoft's Ben Mattes, who talked about the November 11 launch of the Assassin's Creed 2 iPhone/iPod Touch game.

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, because having more games is more important than having better games, right?

[Icarus Moonsight]

That's propaganda. LOL $60 DS and $70 PSP titles? Wasn't/Isn't Tom Tom app $100 on their platform? A little too selective. DS has Korg DS-10 and other non-game type applications... And they are routinely $20-$30 third to half of the upward bound $60 (what? Guitar Hero? WTF?) which includes hardware also as far as ICR. With $60 GH DS games you are getting a physical game and physical hardware. Compare that to $100 licensed binary ether. Doesn't balance or even tilt as stated.

The iPhone-iTouch sell a lot, but it's a small branch of the portable gaming market relative to Nintendo and Sony. That's the problem with the catch-all devices. The numbers lead folks to false conclusions. Sure, people do play games on them, but most people use them primarily as a phone, portable internet appliance and/or passive media device (music, movies, net streaming, etc). I've never heard of anyone buying one primarily for gaming... That's like buying a 360 primarily for reliability. It's like, hey, I'm a gamer who listens to music a lot and wouldn't mind a new cell... I'm thinking iPhone. Music, primary. In that case, the iPhone does not automatically become a favored platform for gaming, though the capability is welcome. The good games on the platform and the unique control scheme (I like the concept of poly-touch screen control) retain a high level of value for what ultimately is a tertiary (or at best, secondary) feature. It simply can not compete with the top tier games on hardware that is primarily gaming devices and all else second. Afterthoughts vs concrete concepts (from the end-user/consumer standpoint)... Place your bets!

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm not sure I follow. I was talking about the Playstation Portable, not the Playstation Portable 2 or whatever the successor will be called. Your examples don't apply, I never talked or even hinted that I thought the UMD format would still be utilized by Sony with the PSP's successor. What I did state is Sony would be crazy to stop supporting the vast majority of their PSP users by deciding to switch all PSP game support to a download only model.
I wasn't talking about the PSP 2 either. The part I've bolded could fit in here: "What I did state is Nintendo would be crazy to stop supporting the vast majority of their NES owners," except replace "vast majority" with "every single one." Functionally, there's no difference between dropping customers one way or another way; don't get lost in the details. As we know, the Super NES went on to be a smashing success despite customers needing to buy everything new and not even being able to use the same video cable.

The fact that the PSP Go is download-only doesn't make it any less convenient than switching to a new system without support for UMDs, which you say you weren't expecting. The only argument here is just sour grapes (which I sympathize with, of course) that Sony may is releasing a "new" system which only changes the content model from discs to download. As many have stated, there's still the regular PSP. If anything, your chances of compatibility looking forwards are much improved with the download model.

I think the Go may well mark the point where Sony makes an effort to ditch read-only media and going forward to focusing on content, hardware, and high-end storage, which all make much more sense in today's landscape. It will inconvenience some to buy games online, but that also frees up ratings restrictions, finally ties the other piece of the puzzle for people who already have been wanting to get online with their media players, and doesn't make it more inconvenient to game on the move (as all you need to do is load the game from the download service while at home).

The elephant in the room in this discussion: Does anybody here seriously think Sony would be wise to invent a "UMD to digital" reader program for the PSP, or hardware to do the same? On top of that, such a device would essentially be a piracy machine; game developers and publishers would force it to be killed. There's no way out of that situation without CD keys (which, for better or worse, PC has been using for years, which let Valve migrate CD-key games to their Steam service in 2003). Physical media is dead, vive le Roi.


Yeah, because having more games is more important than having better games, right?
No, that is not the right way of looking at it. Restricting game creation only to companies funded by multiple millions of dollars is more important than starting to bring down game costs and moving to distribution systems that make sense in today's world, right?

Also, there ARE quality games in the Apps Store; dismissing it all as junk is looking at it through blinders and blackout. The old "Apple = overpriced junk" and "all online game systems = full of trash" generalizations do not apply to the ideas as a whole. In fact, Sony's system may well end up more like Steam, a bit less democratic seeming than the Apps Store, as Steam focuses more on Big Production games and mods for games using their engines.

[Ed Oscuro]

The iPhone-iTouch sell a lot, but it's a small branch of the portable gaming market relative to Nintendo and Sony. That's the problem with the catch-all devices. The numbers lead folks to false conclusions. Sure, people do play games on them, but most people use them primarily as a phone, portable internet appliance and/or passive media device (music, movies, net streaming, etc). I've never heard of anyone buying one primarily for gaming... That's like buying a 360 primarily for reliability. It's like, hey, I'm a gamer who listens to music a lot and wouldn't mind a new cell... I'm thinking iPhone. Music, primary. In that case, the iPhone does not automatically become a favored platform for gaming, though the capability is welcome.
Strikingly accurate commentary from the year 2007! Future, here we come (or don't, because you're focusing too much on the past).

Also, how can you say that phone gaming is a "small branch" of the portable gaming market? Have you numbers for this claim, when anybody and everybody now has a phone? I said this already - dedicated games machines are a luxury; phones are a necessity. The potential to play games is a "value add" to your core phone, day planner, GPS, and portable net device capabilities of phones coming out right now, and it costs nothing to add that capability, as my stupidly cheap and crappy v3m, which still is supported by Verizon, can attest.

One of the problems with the handheld gaming market is that it's incredibly splintered and fragmented, making it tough to cross-port applications.

[Icarus Moonsight]

When people routinely start buying a catch-all device primarily for gaming over a primary gaming device then things will change, not before. At least the past happened. We both have to wait for the future to unfold.

It's not an equatable tally. Numbers and pure data are going to skew the facts.

[Leo_A]

I wasn't talking about the PSP 2 either. The part I've bolded could fit in here: "What I did state is Nintendo would be crazy to stop supporting the vast majority of their NES owners," except replace "vast majority" with "every single one." Functionally, there's no difference between dropping customers one way or another way; don't get lost in the details. As we know, the Super NES went on to be a smashing success despite customers needing to buy everything new and not even being able to use the same video cable.


Because the Super Nintendo was a brand new gaming console, not a simple revision of the NES that dropped cartridge support despite the hardware still being a NES internally. Quite a significant difference. An analogy is when there is a similarity between like features of two different things on which you can draw a comparison from. I see no analogy between a console successor and a revised model of a different piece of hardware that just plays the same games the previous models did. They're very different things.

Sony and PSP game developers are in the business for selling games. They're not going to abandon 56 million PSP's out there in a sudden drive to eradicate physical game releases. Those 56 million PSP's are a guarantee we'll continue to see whatever PSP game development that occurs in the future being sold on store shelfs on UMD's.



The fact that the PSP Go is download-only doesn't make it any less convenient than switching to a new system without support for UMDs, which you say you weren't expecting.

I wasn't expecting what? I never said I wasn't expecting anything. I've been buying games off Steam, various XBLA games on both Xbox consoles, PSN arcade releases, Xbox Originals, PSOne releases over PSN, Virtual Console games, WiiWare games, etc., for years. It's quite evident we're in a gradual shift towards downloadable releases, which is why what's happening is completely logical and expected.

What isn't logical is expecting it to be a sudden shift like you seem to think is going to happen by posting all these rebuttals to my statements. They're not going to abandon millions of units of hardware that play the games you and your 3rd party developers are programming, or suddenly cutting your retail partners out of retail game sales. That is why PSP game releases on UMD will continue for as long as PSP game development continues. Sony fought long and hard to get those 56 million PSP's out there in consumer hands and aren't about to ignore them by going to a download only model for future PSP releases.

UMD releases and download releases will coexist as long as the PSP is on the marketplace, and I fully expect to see physical game releases with a PSP2. It's going to be a long and drawn out shift away from physical game releases that isn't going to happen overnight and the shift won't fully occur with this generation of handhelds and I doubt it will have fully happened with the next.

[Zing]

Are there any games which can only be played on the PSP Go and not the current model PSP?

I don't own a PSP, but I would assume that any game you can download and play on the Go, you could download and play on the regular PSP. Am I wrong?

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Are there any games which can only be played on the PSP Go and not the current model PSP?

I don't own a PSP, but I would assume that any game you can download and play on the Go, you could download and play on the regular PSP. Am I wrong?

There are no DLC games exclusive to/that will only work on the Go, everything on the PSN store is fully compatible with PSP 1000/2000/3000.