Hollywood pulls plug on UMD

[1kyle]

I can't seem to find the UMD thread so please move. (I'm playing with IE7 beta which seems to have a whole slew of problems of it's own).

However Hollywood have pulled the plug on UMD so it really will DIE as the other thread implied.

Anyway no sorrow over that and R.I.P to a real piece of badly thought out rubbish.

Here's the news item.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/85761/hollywoo...media-disc.html

Sometimes the registration (free) banner comes up so if you don't want to register here's a copy of the article

Hollywood studios pull plug on Sony Universal Media Disc 10:31AM

It looks as though the Universal Media Disc format on the PlayStation Portable is a dead duck as far as a media for playing movies. It is yet another blow to Sony which has seen a number of setbacks in the past year, leaving some to wonder if the electronics giant can recover its former glory.

Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment have called a halt to releasing any more movies on the UMD format. Other studios such as 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment are considering drastically cutting back their support for the format.

A Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment exec told the Hollywood Reporter. 'Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them.' Likewise, an executive at Universal Studios Home Entertainment was heard to say `It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb, like Blu-Ray.'

The problem is that while the PlayStation Portable is selling in large amounts, the buyers just seem to want to use it as a handheld games console and are not interested in using it as a way of watching films. And US consumers certainly do not want to be paying more than $20 for a movie to watch it only on a small screen.

Sony has been criticised for not equipping the PSP with an S-video jack to allow it to play back on a standard television. It is now rumoured that the PSP division is talking to Sony Studios about the ramifications if such an accessory were offered for the device.

The last thing Sony needs right now is yet another blow to its credibility as it gears up for the crucial release of the Blu-Ray high definition DVD format later this year. The mood at Sony headquarters will not have been improved by the news that rival Toshiba has launched its first HD-DVD play in Japan. The HD-XA1 costs 110,000 yen, or $940 - somewhat more than the $800 price point promised for the US release due later this month.

The news that the major Hollywood Studios are cutting back their commitment to UMD follows the announcement of the delay in the PlayStation 3 launch until November, following disagreement in the Blu-Ray Consortium over the specification of the DRM. Last year, Sony also faced a public relations disaster when it was revealed that its CD copy protection relied on rootkit code, more commonly associated with virus and spyware writers.

Steve Malone

Cheers

-K

Edited April 11, 2006 by 1kyle

[Stuge]

Good Bye UMD...Universal Media Death

This has to happen one day so i`m not at all surprised

Edited April 11, 2006 by stuge

[Skradgee]

  Quote

The problem is that while the PlayStation Portable is selling in large amounts, the buyers just seem to want to use it as a handheld games console and are not interested in using it as a way of watching films.

Yup. I'm one of those people. Now that I own a PSP, I still haven't bothered to pick up any UMD movies / TV shows to watch on it. I've seen a few that might be nice to own, but even then...I'd just buy the DVD and try to copy it to a flash card. Why should I have to buy a movie twice?

When the PSP was first introduced, I was surprised that it didn't just support standard DVDs. Yeah, the unit would have been a little bigger...probably more shaped like a portable CD player and whatnot, but it didn't seem necessary to develop another whole media format.

Eh...it's the same old Sony song I guess. They'll bounce back. Hopefully the PS3 will right their wrongs.

[MDX-400]

I've mentioned this before on the T-board when a similar article speaking of the "demise" of UMD came up... I see absolutely no "failure" of UMD. I don't think Sony really does either. If they realistically expected UMD to continue on as a standard movie format of some sort they must have been in a dreamland.

I think Sony knew from the getgo and intentionally sold it as a gimmick and nothing more. Format is still going to hold PSP games for however long that console lasts--it isn't like they are going to stop making games on UMD now, lol.

So UMD didn't exactly "work out" for movies, did anyone including Sony really think it would??? Again, if anyone did, they were living in a dreamland and nothing more. There's no way UMD was going to become some kind of standard movie format--only playable with the PSP? Only playable on the little PSP screen (no video out)? That is going to become widely accepted/used? Dreamland... Definitely.

UMD is still doing what it is meant to be doing--providing games content for the PSP. It might even continue with a few movies, particularly from Sony labels, but who cares?