Industry experts foresee touch screen operable, UMD-free ‘PSP2’

If you thought the future of the Sony PSP could only be foreseen by the sole authority of the PlayStation Portable, John Koller, you might want to reconsider that notion. Several high profile game industry veterans popped a few thought balloons over rumors of a new PSP that may be cooking in Sony’s kitchen. What their neurons cooked up on the new features of the “PSP2” you might have difficulty believing – if you don’t find the read too far-fetched.

Gamasutra’s Brandon Sheffield, Wired’s Chris Kohler, and Enter the Matrix dev Dave Perry came forward with their own predictions of the evolution of the PSP. They foresee a further iteration of the PSP, the PSP2 as they call it, after Sony‘s first generation PlayStation Portable polishes up its life cycle, with major changes in its feature set.

Kohler suggests that the PSP2 would be a great opportunity to drop UMD and integrate touch screen operability. The Wired contributor does not believe that UMD will be officially dead, however, and may still have some life on the PSP2.

Sheffield agrees to this as well, and movement for Blu-ray to PSP transfers won’t eliminate the movie fraction of the already so-so performing UMD market. But he countered:

I do however thing [sic] that Blu-Ray-to-PSP is a much more enticing proposition than buying UMDs separately, for a host of obvious reasons – not the least of which is the allure of effectively buying one movie for two formats.

But he still points out that the amount of UMDs on the market will give off a visage that the format isn’t abandoned, and how Sony can keep up with Nintendo’s own race for shelf space and market presence.

Perry believes that the PSP2 will stick to downloadable games, given the staple removable Flash drive. Though the risk of piracy is in the air, and that game retailers will have lesser customers to sell to, he’s sure that the rise of easy interconnectivity will eventually lead to just downloadable media for entertainment in the near future anyway.