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Early last year, Sony's movie format known as UMD (universal media disc), a variant of the standard form of digital media, was still largely viewed by North Americans as a gimmick enabled via the PlayStation Portable with few supporters. But soon after Sony themselves transfered their own films to the small discs, movie studios began believing it financially foolish not to do the same. The UMD format was their ticket to ride the speculated success of the PSP, thus the handheld was launched with a wide array of movies within its media library.

But the present tells an alternate and unforseen story. Contrary to the hopes of the studios involved, sales of UMD copies have been slowing to a crawl. "It's awful. Sales are near zilch," said a high-ranking executive of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. "It's another Sony bomb..." As such, Universal Studios has recently opted to cease releasing versions of their films in the seemingly unfavorable format as a response to the slouching business. Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, another studio that's chosen to currently halt UMD production, states they will continue with the format if and when doing so again proves to be a lucrative move.

It's even been rumored that Wal-Mart retailers may soon refuse to stock UMDs.

Not all is lost, however. Although a vindication attributing to the format's lapse in appeal has not been pinpointed, the president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Benjamin Feingold, does recognize a few of the glaring issues behind the nosedive in sales. All the same, he persists as a strong supporter of UMD movies. "I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device rather than purchasing," Feingold said. Additionally, eye strain resulting from viewing films on the handheld's small screen for hours on end could pose as a sales-deteriorating threat.

Source: GAF

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Words of Wisdom:

If something can go wrong, it will.

If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. - Murphy’s Law

Boing! Zoom! - Mr. Saturn

I am tempted to draw comparisons to the mini-disk.

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"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting... fighting was the only thing I was ever good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in." - Frank Yeager (a.k.a. Grey Fox)

It's simple: people LIKE versatile stuff that can be used in more than one single device. DVDs play on TVs when you want to chill with some friends, they play on PCs when you feel like taking a break from working or playing a game, and heck, they play just about anywhere you could ever want them to. You can rock out to a CD in your car, on a big-ass stereo at a party, on your PC while hammering out some code, or even on a discman while downhill skiing.

Piracy might have an impact, and the small display as well, but even if it weren't for piracy and if Sony released an external display adaptor you can hook up to your PSP, who'd rather buy an UMD when they could get a DVD instead and enjoy it anywhere?

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

I honestly think Sony is using piracy as a scapegoat in this instance. I think the sales were abysmal enough to begin with, of the people I know of with PSPs, none of them have bothered to purchase OR pirate those disks.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

Can't say I'm suprised. I'm a PSP owner, myself, and have never once been even tempted to buy a UMD, mainly because anything I'd want want to watch on UMD is already available on a format that I can use in a number of rooms in my house, or even at a friend's house. I honestly can't think of a single area in which UMD is a better option than DVD, other than perhaps as a means to watch films on long journeys, and even that has it's drawbacks. While piracy may factor into it, I tend to chalk it up more to a format that doesn't really meet the needs of it's customers.

Edit

Okay, so, Silverlance already made my point, really. That'll teach me not to read through before posting.

This post has been edited by Mimic on 12th April 2006 10:30

Hey, this means UMDs might become really cheap soon enough and I might actually consider buying them.

As far as I am concerned, at this point in time my PSP is for games and for music. If I want to watch movies, I'll watch them on a big screen with friends.

I was pretty amazed when I saw so many UMD movies being released.

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'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

First of all, like most of the other people here, I'm not at all surprised. The PSP is no revolution in multimedia that is taking the world by storm, and it would probably take something akin to that sort of popularity to make UMD-video a financial success. I essentially agree with what's been said so far, and I can't say that I'm sad or disappointed that it's gone. I was a little skeptical and extremely apathetic about UMD-video from the start, like most people I guess.

But I think that the real nail in the coffin for UMDs might be that Wal-Mart comment in the original newspost. If Wal-Mart refuses to stock something, for whatever reason, then it will invariably die out in the world market. And apparently, according to a very interesting article I read recently, Wal-Mart has even more influence in the gaming industry than I thought. Wal-Mart indirectly decides whether certain games finish production, and also whether many Japanese games ever make it to US shores. Kinda scary.

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