14 DAY TRIAL // The PlayStation Portable is a pretty popular handheld video game console, as it has a lot of features not only related to games, but also to music, pictures and videos. Sadly, the lack of high-quality titles has made it lose some of its popularity, but thanks to the new offensive launched by Sony, things are looking up.
However, while improvements are being made to the PSP, its archrival, Nintendo's DS, has also received a lot of new features, including the DSiWare service, which allows players to download full games for their console. While the PSP has the PlayStation Network that is filled with demos of titles and even a few fully pledged ones, games are still being firstly launched on the UMD format and then as digital downloads.
Patapon 2 is the latest exception, as it will be simultaneously released on the two formats, but Sony's John Koller has revealed to Wired that there are a lot of things that need to be fulfilled in order for a game to be launched as a digital download, and that, for the PSN to be a good alternative, content must be present.
“There are a few hurdles you need to jump through. A lot of them are legal, so if you have a music game, for example, you have to clear all those rights. The same goes for any other type of game, there are certain negotiations that still need to be done. But we expect all that to be done and cleared, and most games should be able to be placed on the network. The big goal is to ensure that there is content to be downloaded. If you don't have that content, then the PlayStation Network is not a destination for the PSP consumer, and that to us is not acceptable.”
He has declined to comment on anything regarding a future version of the PSP, but with such statements and the growing importance and popularity of digital downloads, a UMD-less PSP might appear in the near future from the Japanese company. Until then, though, the noisy UMD drive will still be present.