Flash memory was still rather expensive at the time of the PSP's development and launch. A mass-produced UMD probably cost a dollar or three to produce and pac

Flash memory was still rather expensive at the time of the PSP's development and launch. A mass-produced UMD probably cost a dollar or three to produce and package and held up to ~1.8GB, whereas consumer flash was more than an order of magnitude more expensive[1] at that time. I mean: Sure, flash eventually became cheap-enough that it became a no-brainer for people like you and I to do whatever we felt like, but the PSP launched in March of 2005 when flash was still precious. (That said, I don't think I even know if the UMD drive on my PSP-2000 ever even worked. I bought it new along with a Memory Stick of a few GBs, immediately rooted it with a special battery[2], and ran old-school console emulators on it. I don't believe that I've ever used it with with a UMD.) [1]: https://www.jcmit.net/flashprice.htm https://www.jcmit.net/flashprice.htm [2]: "Special" battery as in, IIRC, it had a magic serial number that enabled some debugging tools that let the cat out of the bag.