Rumor: UMD-less PSP announcement next week, PS3 slim after summer

Posted May 28, 2009 at 10:57AM by Ryan F. Listed in: PS3, PSP Tags: Sony

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Hungry for more E3 rumors? Well here we go again. Ars Technica is reporting that the new PSP model or PSP-Go! is real, and it will be announced at E3 next week. Furthermore, a slimmed-down PS3 is indeed coming to retail shelves soon.

According the Ars Technica's Sony mole, the upcoming UMD-less PSP will be much lighter and will consume less power than its predecessor. It will also be sold at a much lower price next to the current PSP models which won't be taken out from the store shelves. Sony is also expected to back up the announcement with some more good titles which will be released in both retail and as digital downloads.

Now on to the PS3 slim rumor. The mole says that Sony won't be making an announcement at E3 regarding the slimmed down version of PS3 since there are still plenty of them sitting at retail shelves right now. Sony is expected to wait until after summer to make an announcement to allow the supply of the older units to dry up. As to what features will be taken out or added to the slimmed down PS3, it is still not clear.

Via Ars Technica

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Comments

# ... — enigmaticdude 2009-05-28 06:35

Keep the rumor mill spinning, make people believe what isn't true or confirmed.

I will believe it when SONY announces it.

# compatable....issue — FORCE4121 2009-05-28 07:22

will old psp's be abke to play the digital downloaded games.

# .... — ptspyder 2009-05-28 08:01

I like the part where the slim PS3 will be a 4Q release. If its true, that thing must be god-awful cheap to produce vs the current ps3.

However, considering how much more compact the components need to be, I assume the production costs of such advanced technology would outweigh any material cost savings.

Its wishful thinking, a slim PS3 is still a few years off.

# probably — Seoulfood 2009-05-28 08:40

I would imagine so. But I kinda call shenanigans on the whole "sold at a much lower price" portion. How much would ditching UMD drives really cut costs? Also, they'd probably HAVE to have some kinda built in flash memory, ya?

# Well price cut would go — phiyuku 2009-05-28 09:03

with smaller shell. No UMD Drive. Flash is pretty cheap and it doesn't say if it has it or not. If anything they will include atleast a 1-2gb memory stick which they make themselves so it won't cost much. No UMD + less battery which + smaller battery which is probably not that much of a difference in price. Screen size we have no idea if it will be the same but that is a major factor in the price of the PSP. And yes OLD PSPs would be able to play the downloaded games. The new PSP revision is not a replacement or sucessor to the old PSP it is rather another variant which has stripped out parts basically a stripped version of the PSP.

# you might be right — Seoulfood 2009-05-28 09:44

I just feel that after the money that went into the redesign, and a predicted increase in appeal/demand, Sony wouldn't immediately opt for a price cut. And this doesn't take into account any possible touch screen inclusion. Maybe I'm just thinking of how the DS lite was.

# A few years? — b2dub2 2009-05-28 10:15

That slim bastard is in production, theyll be out in 6 months, tops.

# mmm — balkanboy 2009-05-28 11:06

can we be seeing BIGGER size PSP games....hrmm

# fingers crossed... — kyuubi82 2009-05-28 12:16

hopefully with the fact that most games are going to be released via PSN it'll stop the limit of games only being around 2gb... hopefully we'll start getting some better looking and longer playing games...

# hmmm — Aces In The Palm 2009-05-28 14:47

actually i think the games will get smaller in size, not everyone has broadband and not everyone wants to wait hours after paying for a game to be able to play it.

i still think getting of UMD is a bad idea.

releasing on protected memory sticks would be better.

like xbox360 discs, they can only be read on certain DVD drives, sony should do same thing with their memory sticks.

they cant kill physical media.

# edit — Aces In The Palm 2009-05-28 15:10

i still think getting rid of UMD is a bad idea.

# ... — ptspyder 2009-05-28 15:35

Could be, we will see. However, Im still skeptical. From the available pictures of the slim, it could just be an R and D tool.

# romstiks + read-only-memory sticks — genesiscopy 2009-05-28 19:20

sony shud introduce romstiks and downloadable at the same time...

plus the downloadable ver shud be able to be downloaded multiple of times since dd can be broken down and sometimes not resumable..

# hard to admit but... — Miclowgunman 2009-05-28 20:28

digital download is the wave of the future. Just look at music. Most normal people don't own tons of cd's these days. They just buy the song online and download it. As broadband becomes more available and speeds increase, the size of files sold on the internet get larger. Steam's success shows that people are willing to buy digital games at the same price as physical media. Heck, i know people who would rather stream a video online then go to the store and get the HD version for the same cost! plus, how many people do you think would just watch the download? They can just play another game while they wait. You cant play a game on your way to Gamestop(well, not recommended), and you have to wait until you get home to play the game anyway. anyhoo, jump on the digital train, cause the physical ones about to break down...

# lol — Aces In The Palm 2009-05-28 20:50

people i know download music but they dont pay for it

and downloading a 5MB song is alot different to downloading a 2GB game

honestly, i can walk into EB and buy 5 or 6 games, do you really think i'm going impulsively buy 5 or 6 games when i have to download them....NO

the rom sticks are a good idea, but they'de have to sort it so only PSP drives can read them

trying to put them into a PC would garble the information or not come up at all.

plus alot of people download restrictions and some on prepaid broadband (3G) pay for every byte so essentially you'd be paying for the game twice.

unless the PSP Go! has its own networking (built in sim card on 3G network) so you pay for the game and download free then they could be losing alot of sales.

# - — RJ 2009-05-29 01:15

My thoughts exactly Seoulfood. I can't imagine UMD drives costing a lot, considering DVD drives can be built for a few £ now at a manufacturing level. Flash memory is more expensive, or at least for the larger 32, 64gb variations. Which its going to need as a DD platform.

But something is definitely happening. I just wonder what its going to be. My sources aren't giving up any info.

Either way it's going to be a "diet" model I think. The PSP is still quite expensive, I could imagine Sony releasing a new cheap model.

# Hey! — TheRockness 2009-05-29 01:17

How about you eat a big bowl of stfu. No one cares what you have to say. That's the true enigma.

# - — RJ 2009-05-29 01:20

Romsticks? Nope. Heh, I find it funny that the Sony crowd used to criticise Nintendo for carts and now they can hold more everyones jumping back on the cart bandwagon xD

You can scratch that from any guesses.

Also I like UMD. I like DD on PC's but consoles should be physical media. PC is okay because it's such an open platform.

# Rumors? — ti_kucF 2009-05-29 02:09

Rumors rumors rumors!!!! i want the official announcement!!

# Fingers Crossed!!! — xxPI3TROxx 2009-05-29 07:45

I really want a new PSP!!! I am perfectly happy with my PS3 though

# Umm. — Rosh31 2009-05-29 10:02

How about this, all game stores that sell video games make a computer booth where you plug your psp in and get the game you want onto your memory stick or hard drive right away. It would be just like buying a umd but better. And it would take a lot less time getting it onto your psp rather than downloading it from the playstation store.

# the nintendo carts still will be criticised — Aces In The Palm 2009-05-29 16:57

reason being maximum size of a DS cart is 128MBytes (1Gb or one Gigabit, divide bits by 8 to get bytes)

the carts are tiny compared to sony's 1.8GByte UMD's.

# carts — Nascence 2009-05-29 18:39

Yes, memory sticks can hold multiple times more than DS carts can and are definitely cheaper to make than UMDs because the cost of flash memory has decreased greatly.

(back in 2006 a 1GB memory stick that was probably $40 is now available for as little as $6)

Sony could create their own proprietary cart storage and Nintendo could easily revamp how much space carts could hold for future platforms.

Don't forget that UMDs and DS carts are 5 years old, and technology hasn't stopped advancing since then.

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