Sony‘s got some breathing room now that its PlayStation Vita is only releasing in Japan this year, with US and Europe releases to follow in early 2012. The company seems to be using that time well too, going straight to the fans to get a consensus on what the hoped-for peripherals are.
Feedback is being collected on the Japanese PlayStation Vita community site (via Andriasang), which currently has 556 responses and counting. Even if you can’t read the Japanese text, it’s pretty clear from browsing through the pages that some kind of external drive or converter for UMD, the PlayStation Portable‘s disc format, is a top request. Others include a cradle with HDMI Out, a full keyboard attachment and a secondary battery.
That UMD comes up in nearly every comment isn’t surprising considering that there continue to be UMD-only PSP titles, including popular ones like Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. Most of the platform’s catalog is available for digital download, but the online store launched so late in the PSP’s life that many gamers are stuck with physical media that, so far, won’t have any compatibility with the Vita. An external UMD drive could change that, and hopefully the request for suggestions is a sign that it might be considered.
