Giving the PSP direct access to the PlayStation Store may not kill the UMD disc, according to Sony, but it's certainly going to change the way games are distributed.

With digital distribution, Sony hopes to ignite a new breed of games to be released on the handheld. Says SCEE's Zeno Colaco (same guy who said that the PS Store won't kill the UMD format):

It gives publishers and developers much more scope in relation to the types of games they can release.

If they want to make a massive game, then they can do that, as before, as a boxed product on UMD. But if they want to do a smaller game just released online, or add downloadable content such as new characters to a UMD game, they can do that too.

I have to be careful what I say but publishers are definitely exploring more opportunities in terms of the types of games they can release on PSP, even in terms of more female-oriented games, puzzlers and less hardcore games.

Well you can imagine the possibilities. Being able to distribute smaller gamers digitally would really open the doors for the PSP. If devs decide to flood the PS Store with casual games, that means the PSP is no longer the "hardcore" handheld platform.

If that happens, that means more PSP sales, which means more devs would be interested in making games for the PSP, which means more PSP games. Now let's just hope it won't take the WiiWare route and get flooded with shovelware.

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