Sony had plans to make a PSP without the UMD drive from the beginning of the system"s life, according to a new interview with GameBusiness.jp (via Develop). "We"d planned to release a PSP model without a UMD drive since the very beginning," said Naoya Matsui, Sony"s head of product planning. "But if we"d simply released the hardware, there wouldn"t have been much for everyone to enjoy. We needed to prepare the right environment for it first... We wanted to release it when the delivery of digital content was on par with the delivery of physical media. That"s what we"ve been working on these past two years."

It certainly makes sense for Sony to plan ahead so far in advance, since most hardware manufacturers do. It does shake up some assumptions about the UMD format, though. The focus on digital delivery seemed to be consciously shifting away from the proprietary format, which has had a rocky history. Instead, it seems to have been a bridge to where Sony ultimately wanted to go with the product all along.