It seems that the decision by Sony not to offer support for the UMD format that was used on all of the previous versions of the PlayStation Portable till the PSPgo was released might be impacting sales more than Sony is willing to admit. Despite the fact that Sony has said they have considered the possibility of a UMD support of some sort or a UMD upgrade program, the company has been steadfast in their decision not to go this route.

According to our trusted sources, all of this might PSPgo-UMD drama might not have been lost on third-party hardware developer Logitech, who we are now hearing has an add-on UMD drive in development for the PSPgo. While it will not be pretty and will add size and weight to the elegant PSPgo unit, it will give those who own UMD games for the PSP the ability to flock to this solution, instead of taking the plunge and re-purchasing download versions of titles that they already own on UMD.

From what our sources tell us, the UMD drive would connect to the PSPgo via the memory stick slot, as some PSP hard drive add-ons that were released for previous PSP units did. While we continue to hear rumors of another version of the PSP that seems to be known as the PSP-4000 (which would be basically a PSPgo with a UMD drive) that dominated whispers during the recent Tokyo Game Show, it is unknown if Sony is still headed in this direction in the short term.

Given the fact that Sony has already committed to supporting the UMD format for the PSP through 2010, we have to wonder if a decision by Logitech to release a UMD drive add-on for the PSPgo would be the right decision and a money maker for the company. While no time line for release of this UMD add-on for the PSPgo is known, we suspect that Logitech will want to firm up Sony's plans for UMD going forward as well as know if the company is really looking at a release of the PSP-4000 before moving to final production of the product. We will just have to wait and see.