farbot.com

With the PSP Go, all-digital download gaming handheld looking like a sure thing with today's rush of leaked information the Universal Media Disc or UMD format is on deathwatch. Yes the PSP-1000, 2000, and 3000 all read it natively, and yes the 3000 will continue to be produced for an unknown but certainly finite amount of time alongside the Go, but the writing is on the wall.

Current PSP owners are right to be miffed that their games won't be playable on the PSP Go, and I am among them. Some folks have talked about getting some kind of hardware to rip UMDs to your own new PSP memory, but they would never allow that simply because you could just rip the same disc for all your friends with impunity.

There's only one realistic way Sony can make folks like me happy and that would be with a conversion service that would work thusly:

1. Do a web lookup: is this UMD supported in this program.
2. Fill out a form online linked to your PSN ID indicating the game you are sending in, print a label to enclose with it.
3. Include a $5 fee.
4. Snail-mail the UMD, fee, and form to Sony.
5. Sony receives the UMD, emails you a PlayStation Store code for one copy of the game.
6. Sony destroys the UMD.

This requires two important things. First, the publisher must allow your game to be converted and second, the game must be available as a digital download on the PlayStation Store.

The first point is a sticky but important one. Sony would have to defer to the developer to ensure that if, say, Capcom does not want you to get Monster Hunter Freedom 1 or 2 in digital format to drive you to, say, buy the digital version of Monster Hunter Unity at full price, that is their prerogative. They can simply withhold those versions of the game from the Store or, alternately, just not approve them to be part of this exchange program.

This gives the developers the power they want over their games, and it also gives Sony their wish to see the UMD format die, and the costs associated with making UMD drives for PSPs die with it.