Sony's UMD Facing Last Rites 03.30.06 By Reuters Exactly a year after it was launched in the United States, the Sony PlayStation Portable's days as a hand-held movie-viewing device might be numbered. 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. Wal-Mart representative Jolanda Stewart declined comment on reports that the retailer is getting out of the UMD business. But studio sources say such a move is imminent, and a check Wednesday of a Wal-Mart store in Santa Ana, Calif., revealed a drastic shrinkage of UMD inventory. Several shelves of movies in the PSP section were gone; all that remained were seven UMD titles sitting bookshelf-style on the top of the PSP section, with no prices or other information. 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." (Sony, in fact, vowed Wednesday to stick by the announced May 23 street date for the studio's first batch of Blu-ray Disc titles despite reports that the next-generation hardware needed to play the discs likely won't arrive in U.S. stores until the following month at the earliest.) Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment also is said to be out of the UMD business. "We continue to evaluate the PSP platform for each title, and if it makes sense for business reasons and the target audience, we will release them," spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone said. "Our focus right now is much more aimed at HD (high-definition) at the moment, though." A high-ranking executive was more blunt: "We are on hiatus with UMD," he said. "Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them." Also out of the UMD business is Image Entertainment, while other studios—including 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment—have drastically slashed release schedules. "No one's watching movies on PSP," said the president of one of the six major studios' home entertainment divisions. "It's a game player, period." Observers speculate the studios released too many movies, too fast. Within five months of the PSP's March 2005 launch, 239 movie and TV titles already were either in the market or in the pipeline—a significantly higher tally than games, according to the DVD Release Report. But while sales were initially strong—two Sony Pictures titles even crossed the 100,000-unit threshold after just two months—the novelty quickly wore off, observers say. The arrival last fall of Apple's video iPod only hastened the PSP's decline as a movie-watching platform. Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, was a big believer in PSP as a movie-watching platform. He still is, even though he concedes retail shelf space for UMD movies is on a sharp decline and his own studio is being "more selective" in choosing movies for UMD release. Feingold believes the PSP's biggest drawback as a movie-watching device was the inability to connect the gadget to TV sets for big-screen viewing, "which would have made it more compelling," as well as the inclusion of memory stick capability. "I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device rather than purchasing," he said. But next week, Sony Computer Entertainment executives will begin making the rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to connect to TV sets. "We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback," he said. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1944533,00.asp Well of course people are ripping and putting the movies on memory sticks, why not? Why would people buy 2 copies of the same movie when they can just rip their own DVDs. You don't HAVE to buy a download of a song to get it on your mp3 player when you can just rip your own CDs, it should not have been any different with movies. So long UMDs, you were taking up way too much space at my Best Buy.
I never really saw the rationale behind the UMDs. I guess for the people who couldn't figure out how to rip their movies? And what's this? Blu-ray is a bomb already? I don't think it will be successful, but isn't it a little early to declare it a failure already?
Universal is going with HD-DVD and not Blu Ray from what I understand so that might have something to do with it..
When will people learn Proprietary stuff like this is not good when you don't play well with others. . you suffer it almost killed APPLE Rocket RIver
Maybe this means that they'll start dropping the price of these things. I'm sure Sony realizes that without a UMD burner on the market along with not implementing UMD into the PS3 and giving you the ability to transfer movies to a memory card, that this type of media was never to be a big hit. As far as Blu-Ray not being sucessfull, I think otherwise. Sony just seems to have too much support and leaverage for this format to sink.
Yeah, this isn't really much of a surprise. I thought that prices would go down eventually, but here we are more than a year after the PSP launch, and UMD movies still cost (considerably) more than DVD movies, and the PSP is still the only device that can play them. I'm surprised they sold as well as they did; the format should have been DOA with that setup. Plus, it didn't help that the studios tried selling movies that probably wouldn't sell well to the PSP userbase (like ~95% male IIRC, probably in that 18-25 age range). I suppose if they cut the prices to below DVD movies and/or offer them with DVD/BR movies (at acceptable prices), things might get better. Getting some UMD burners and players might help too. That said, it may not help much, and for some reason, I doubt the movie studios and CE companies will bother. Hehe...yeah. When I read that originally, I was a little confused too. But then I realized that only one major movie studio supports HD DVD and not BR, and guess what studio that was.
I thought there were more in the HD-DVD side than just one...Arent there a few studios on the both the HD-DVD side and also on the BR side just to play it safe?? Or is Universal the only exclusive studio so far for Hd-DVD??
Universal is the only major movie studio that is exclusively supporting HD DVD. Warner and Paramount used to be exclusive to HD DVD as well, but they became supporters for both formats shortly before CES in January IIRC. The rest of the major studios are exclusive to Blu-ray (Disney, Fox, and of course Sony). I'm drawing a blank on Liongate, but I think they might be BR exclusive too...either that or they support both. There are some smaller movies stuios that may have picked HD DVD exclusively, but those are all the important ones that I can think of.
I just don't understand why they cost MORE than regular DVDs. Hell, they just have the movie and rarely even have special features. If they were around $10, I'd buy them, but as stated, its better just to rip them and store them to your memory card with 1 and 2 gig MS are getting cheaper by the day.
"It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb—like Blu-ray." _____________ Tip of the iceberg -- Sony is blowing up like Scarface on an 8-ball.
I own a whole whopping two of them, the Spidey 2 that came with my PSP and Sin City that I got a a Birthday gift. I was hoping for a UMD player to be included with the PS3, I think that would have really helped the format. If it goes under I can just put those two movies on the shelf with my mint condition "Up In Smoke " and "Hair" soundtracks on 8-track, my Commodore 64 "One On One: Julius Erving and Larry Bird" floppy disc, my mini-discs, and my reel to reel "Sgt Peppers". I almost have a museum exhibit now!
