Tuesday, April 04, 2006

UMD D-U-M-PED

Sony's hopes of creating a sparkling new revenue stream ("format") in the shape of Universal Media Discs have run into trouble.

The original idea was that UMD would allow the PlayStation Portable to function as a hand-held movie watching device. Trouble was, hardly anyone wanted to watch movies on their games machines:

Disappointing sales have slowed the flow of movies on the proprietary Universal Media Disc to a mere trickle. At least two major studios have completely stopped releasing movies on UMD, while others are either toying with the idea or drastically cutting back.

And retailers also are cutting the amount of shelf space they've been devoting to UMD movies, amid talk that Wal-Mart is about to dump the category entirely.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said one high-ranking exec: "It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-ray."


239 movies and TV shows got a UMD run out; just two managed to sell more than 100,000 copies.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"hardly anyone wanted to watch movies on their games machines"

I don't believe that. What that dumb executive means is that no one is stupid enough to pay for the same content twice to watch movies on their PSP - anyone who wants to is converting the movies themselves.

Anonymous said...

I actually *do* want to watch movies on my PSP... badly! Like Aaron says: I'm not gonna buy movies twice. When I buy a movie, I want to be able to watch it on both my PSP and my tv. I think I may buy movies when they produce some thingy to watch PSP content on tv, *that's* what they should be doing. And make UMD-writers.

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