Shiny founder Dave Perry has been very vocal about consoles as of late. After estimating Wii's death clock, the Earthworm Jim designer has set his sights on Sony's PSP.In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Perry refers to redesign as a "head in the sand" move while saying that Sony should "restart the PSP program" and specifically calls for the removal of UMD in favor of digital download.
Perry also suggests that the transition to an UMD-less PSP would be relatively painless, asserting that it would be easy to create software to authenticate and re-download for free titles you already own.
While we agree that digital distribution is on the rise, we're not sure if there's financial benefit for the consumer. A 1.0 GB memory stick can cost over $30, and then you still have the buy the titles (which may not drop in price should they go download). If you want to carry more than a few games around, you're going to need multiple memory sticks. If Sony does heed Perry's advice (and we see no evidence as to why they would), maybe they could replace the UMD slot with a decent hard drive, instead.
