New Sony PSP without the silly UMD slot?

April 30, 2009 | By Admin In Technology |

I guess the word ‘silly’ kinda tipped you off on what I think of Sony’s proprietary cartridge disc thing. It’s not that the games are way too pricey for physical copies, but rather that they can sometimes take years to load. The difference between booting a digital copy from my memory stick and loading the game from a UMD can be like night and day. But if we were to mention prices, I also like the fact that I can find certain games on the Sony Store for a mere $15.99 instead of the $20-30 they’d demand on store shelves.

But enough of my blabbering, you want to know about that PSP mockup at the top of the post. Rumour has it that the UMD slot is being ditched and being replaced with 8 or 16GB of flash memory, the controls will magically come out from under the huge sliding screen, and they’re still sticking with the one analog stick deal. As a PSP owner, I think that’s a horrible idea. One of the things I find that really holds the system back is the fact that there’s no way to tightly control movement and aim with only one stick. I understand that it might not be as simple as adding a couple of new wires to magically enable the system to see new controls, but if Sony is aiming to make this a truly portable Playstation and not simply a Playsholder, then for the love of God of War, give us our second stick!

[news and pic from Slashgear]