PSP Go! - is it the new PSP?

Posted by Al Warmington on Wed 29 Apr 2009

Goodbye UMD, hello 100 new downloads!

Another day, another new PSP rumour. If these things keep coming, Sony will probably have to launch a new handheld purely out of peer pressure.

The latest rumour is far more detailed than any that have come before, even going so far as to give the new model a name. PSP Go! has been picked as the most likely title, now that Sony is believed to be dropping numerical naming in favour of a suffix.

PSP Go! seems like an logical choice, seeing as Sony already has a brand of PSP accessories and services under the name Go!. There’s a chance that Sony could gun for something like PSP Slide or PSP Flip though.

1Up cites “sources directly involved with the new system” and reckons that an announcement is due around E3 time, which goes along nicely with previous rumours. Similarly, UMD is believed to have been given the chop, with Sony pushing its PlayStation Store downloadable games service as an alternative.

To herald the arrival of the new handheld, Sony will be adding 100 extra titles to the service, including classics and brand new games. One of those is alleged to be the long lost Gran Turismo Mobile, which was once promised as a launch title for the original PSP. We’re not holding our breath.

In order to give players enough space for all their downloaded titles, Sony is going to be pushing two new PSPs, sporting 8GB and 16GB of Flash memory respectively. As rumoured before, the screen will slide out to reveal the controls underneath, although there will be no second analogue stick this time - the picture, right, is an artist's impression of what it may look like. We reckon Sony will manage something considerably slicker though. Touchscreen is a still a possibility, but it’s looking like a distant one now.

All this is, of course, mere rumour and speculation, about which Sony will not comment. However, there’s clearly something happening at E3 time and all eyes will be on Sony to see what surprises it has in store.

Link: PlayStation (via SPOnG)

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