Despite internet leaks pointing towards the fact, nothing’s official until Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, holds it up on an E3 stage. And at their media briefing Tuesday it all became fact.

The PSP Go is catered to the savvy modern minimalist, or at least those gamers and multimedia nerds who don’t want to haul a bunch of UMDs around. The PSP’s previous UMD slot was done away completely and the system will be able to tap into the Playstation Store to download content to its internal 16 GB flash memory, which can be expanded via the Memory Stick Micro slot.

That’s right everything must be uploaded to the system. This is sure to cause controversy for those gamers who like a physical copy of the media to go with the hard earned cash they spend on it. But it should really appeal to the more casual, more streamlined, more on-the-go gamer (hence the name I suppose).

In addition to its smart new digital content campaign, the PSP Go offers a slick compact design with a face interface that is much more focused on the screen itself, even though the screen is actually slightly smaller. This is because the entire set of D-Pad, analog nub and face buttons have been removed from the main panel and tucked behind it on a second, slide-out panel. This is a fantastic idea: if you don’t need the buttons right now, you don’t have to have them getting in the way.

The PSP Go will also feature all the same media capabilities (sans UMD) and features that the other PSP models offer.

Sony made very clear that the GO will not interfere with the current PSP models, and that they have no plans to cease development or support for the UMD proprietary media disc. The systems will co-exist for the time being.

The PSP Go is set to go this October in the U.S. and Europe, with a November release for Japan, and will retail at the $200-250 range.