Sony has been tight lipped on the existence of plans to create a UMD-less PSP so far but dribs and drabs of information made it through the cracks and kept the rumors going. The download-only nature of Patapon 2 threw gasoline on the fire, since if Sony is testing the potential for the PSP to adopt a digital distribution scheme it means they’ve got some time and money invested in it.

1Up is coming forward with information from sources directly working on the project. According to their report the new PSP is set to be revealed to the public this year at E3 in June. Several of the rumors about its redesign features are said to be correct, including a sliding screen that slides up to reveal the face buttons and a lack of a UMD slot, but no second analog nubbin. The sources claim that the new PSP will have a subtitle rather than a numerical designation and the existence of ‘Go!’ branded peripherals suggest it might be called the PSP Go!.

The new PSP will be launching in September in Japan, October or November in the USA. Over a hundred PSP titles are planned to be available for download at launch, with two SKU’s available, one with eight gigabytes of flash memory and the other with sixteen.  (Note: the picture above is not an actual image of it, simply a mock-up from 1Up)