Now for my first prediction…well it’s probably more of an analysis.
A month or so rumours started flying about regarding a UMD-less PSP, and since then the have gathered in numbers and strength since then, with sony denying it, then hinting at it, the saying they would never do it, then makeing press releases that suggest towards it, and “reliable sources” saying that it is definatly going to happen…you get the idea.
I think that, with rumours this strong, it is likely that a UMD-less PSP might be in the works, as they usually often sometimes don’t appear from nowhere, however I have my suspicians.
Firstly, when the PSP was released, sony were big about the UMD thing. They gave the impression that it created a world of oppertunity, with films as well of games released on the format, and it’s 1.5gb capacity was another technical detail that vastly outdid the nintendo DS. It seems to me that it is unlikely that sony would just give up use of the disk, especially when it means that they could loose the market share who don’t have the internet or wifi to download games.
However, I can see the financial reasons for such a move. Not only would the ommision of the drive cut the cost of manufacture of the PSP, enabling a cheaper end price, and so possible more sales, but it would also free up a vast amount of space large percentage of the PSP, enabling designers to either make the PSP slimmer, or add extra feature-bringing components.
However the inclusion of additionsl features is something that brings up more questions for me. You see, with the PSP slim and lite light, and the PSP-3000, sony took care to ensure that the features, although improving the functionaity and quality of the console, didn’t make the original PSP useless, so ensured that most of the proeccessor and memory specs were about the same, and so ensured the original PSP could still play any new games that came out.
However, if I was in charge of sony now, especially after very few no major PSP game releases last year, I would be very interested in totally changing the PSP, and this contradicts the view of the rumourees people suggesting a UMD-less PSP. Also, the exclusion of the UMD drive doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of hardware revisions. If were were to add new features, the would probably be some, if not all of:
- Blu-ray technology UMD drive revision / upgrade
- Increased processing power / memory (possibly based on the PS3 archetechure, as it is already optimised a lot, and so would cut down the price of research / development)
- Bluetooth Capabilitys
- GPS
- Touch screen???
- Hard drive / internal memory
- Phone Capabilitys
I think, of this list, the last one seems the most important to me. Although my thoughts may have actually been spawned from them, rumours of a PSP-phone have been strong almost since it’s launch. Also, with the iphone nibbling at the market every day, and it’s money-printing abilities, it would seem the obvious thing to do.
So, I think that the UMD-less PSP might just be gaining more than it’s shedding, and if not with the PSP-4000, then not so long away, I think the PSP2MultimediaPhone might not be that far away.
ps. If someone from high up in sony / playstation chances upon this, I not only predicting that this is likely to happen, I am suggesting that if this isn’t happening or isn’t set to happen, you go about making this happen, as I would certainally buy something like this.
pps. That ps. was utterly pointless wasn’t it.
*<Winks blindly and hopefully into the dark void>*
*<Shouts into the dark void "Look, I'll even do this market "research for you">*
playstation_predictions 