If you order, they will come. That’s the plan NIS America is going with in regards to a possible UMD release of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This?, previously released as a PSN download over the summer.
After receiving plenty of fan-mail asking about a Holy Badman UMD release and subsequently hosting a poll gauging interest in such a move, NIS has announced that it would really like to give the game a limited UMD printing, and will do so if the demand is there. So, if you really want to see the game on UMD you can go to RosenQueen.com right now and place a pre-order. If at least 1,000 orders are placed by November 13th, NIS will begin to produce Holy Badman UMDs for shipping in mid December (December 18th is the projected date).
As a backup plan, NIS is also seeking support from retailers. From what I was told by NIS PR back when the decision was made to nix the UMD version, lack of retailers willing to stock the game was a major influence in switching to PSN as the lone method of distribution. But NIS isn’t giving up the fight. Even if pre-order demand on RosenQueen falls short of 1,000, a UMD version will be printed if enough retailers are willing to support the game.
Frankly, though, I wouldn’t count on retailer support for such a niche game on a platform that gets very little shelf to begin with, so if you really want it on UMD you better order it online and tell your PSP friends to do the same.