While they are not actually admitting it widely in public, in private Sony is talking up the actual reason that the decision was made not to make the battery removable on the PSPgo. According to a variety of sources, the decision to make the battery non-removable was actually to address the “Pandora Battery” exploit in the previous generation of PSP in the name of preventing software piracy.

The decision to not include a user replaceable battery has already soured some on the PSPgo, although you can ship it back to Sony to have the battery replaced. If the unit is out of warranty, however, there will be a fee involved.

The lack of a user replaceable battery has closed one avenue that software pirates have used in the past to exploit the previous generation from using the Pandora Battery exploit; this was done in combination with a special bootable memory stick that easily made it possible to load a variety of exploited firmware onto the PSP.

While it is currently unknown if any hacks or exploits have been found for the PSPgo on the scale of the Pandora Battery exploit, it is certain that a number of people are already trying to find a way. While some legitimate users will complain about the inconvenience to users of replacing the battery, Sony obviously believes that blocking an avenue to potential software piracy is more important than customer convenience. Given all of the problems that Nintendo has had with the R4 on the DS and DSi, it is no wonder that Sony wants to close as many doors as possible with the solid hardware design.