4 Comments

Some things are destined for greatness

July 15, 2006 by in AV,Entertainment with 4 Comments

The Sony UMD movie format just wasn’t one of them. According to Gamespot, Sony will be discontinuing the UMD movie format instead relying on its Memory Stick’s for movie portability and “convenience”.

After getting off to a strong start in the wake of the American PSP launch last March, the Universal Media Disc (UMD) appears to be on its last legs. Sales of movies on the PSP’s once-hot proprietary format have slowed to a trickle, causing several major movie studios to cease supporting it. In March, the Hollywood Reporter ran an article claiming that the home-entertainment divisions of Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures have “completely stopped” releasing films on the format, and other studios have been cutting back their release slates.

If you ask me, the UMD was doomed from the start. Why would consumers pay for an additional copy of their favorite movies in a UMD format if they already own the DVD to rip and transfer to their PSPs? I never fully understood the convenience behind owning two of the same movies.


  • Josh

    For some people I’m sure it was a good buy. Maybe they didn’t have computer skills or a machine that could rip a movie in reasonable amount of time, if at all. I’m not one of those people. Had UMDs been $5-10 I might have considered it when I had a PSP.

  • Dean

    UMD-Movies were doomed from the start yeah,it would have been nice if you got some kinda unique ID when you buy a Movie with which you can download the Movies online for maybe a few bucks.

  • Neil

    There would have been a market for a double pack, dvd and umd for a small premium.

  • Angel

    The fact that it isn’t exactly simple to encode and transfer media to the PSP would have persuaded many people to purchase UMDs if the price was right. Unfortunately, Sony was just too greedy. Charging the same or more than DVDs was downright ridiculous and the true reason why it failed.

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