PSP World

How Will Sony Solve the Old UMD Problem?

With its super-small PSP Go coming to shops soon, Sony has a big-sized problem brewing on the horizon. How will users who already own an older model of PSP transfer their UMD games to the 16GB internal storage of the PSP Go? Surely, Sony can't expect us to buy all of our old games again in digital form, so they must be considering various options to placate those gamers with a big pile of UMDs. Here, we consider a few options of the table for Sony, whose "goodwill" program has been announced but not clarified in any significant way, less than two months before the launch of the PSP Go.

The PSP Go, which has no UMD drive like previous models of the handheld, is an experiment in digital distribution. The company expects that the small device, which features a sliding screen and Wifi internet connectivity, will entice users who value the freedom of a digital-only distribution model. The problem for Sony is that there might not be all that many new customers out there who have been on the fence about the PSP all this time simply because of the presence of the optical disk format. Undoubtedly, the real target customer for Sony's new PSP model is pre-existing PSP owners like you and I, who wouldn't mind upgrading to a new model if it contained the right features. In order to get some of us on board, Sony needs a system for transferring old UMD games to the PSP Go. It might look something like this:

1) An External UMD Drive: This is arguably the most fanciful and least likely of the options on the table. There would be something cool, almost retro, about an external UMD drive that could connect to the PSP via USB and simply rip games directly into the flash memory. There are some real advantages of such a system, both for consumers and for Sony. The advantage for consumers would be total freedom to rip games whenever they wished. We could even continue buying used UMD games and movies in retail shops, and then rip those into our slick new handheld. The advantage for Sony is obvious: the company could charge a slight premium for the UMD drive, and generate even more profit from all of those PSP Go owners. Of course, the chance for piracy here is high - what's to stop folks from sharing their UMD collections with friends, or bringing their UMD drive with them to school and having a rip-fest over lunch?

How is Sony planning to get all of those UMDs into our PSP Go?

A Code Redemption Program: A far more likely path for Sony to take would be to require that gamers enter a code from the original UMD case for a one-time only digital download. Perhaps Sony could generate a database of all of the UPC product codes from the back of UMD cases (no simple task), and then cross check those numbers to verify when a person entered their code on the Playstation Network. If the code matched, the particular copy of the game would be flagged, and the user would be allowed to download the digital version to their PSP Go. This would obviously be very time intensive for Sony, who would need to create a massive database of every redeemable UMD product code and then control how many times users were able to download the same game. The advantage would be that Sony would be able to cut down on piracy, and we would still be able to keep our old UMDs in addition to the new digital copy of the game. Piracy might not be completely eliminated with such a scheme, however: enterprising hackers could find a way to automatically generate sequences of UMD product codes, redeem those, and thus deprive potential "real" owners of their digital copies.

A Mail-in program: This is perhaps the most likely possibility, because it is most advantageous for Sony. Here, users who wanted to transfer their UMD games to the PSP Go would have to mail their old UMDs to a specified address, and Sony would then credit the user's Playstation Store account with the appropriate game download token. Sony would still have to pay for all of the warehouse monkeys in charge of receiving the games, but their overall costs would still be lower than option 2, above. Of course, this would be the least desirable option for gamers, because the UMD could get lost in the mail, and after sending it in, players would no longer have their original physical copy of the game to re-sell.

What do our readers think? Will you buy a PSP Go even if Sony does not have a system in place to transfer your old UMDs? Which of the possible options above would you prefer?