July 14th, 2006
Sony Kills Off UMD Movies
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
This should not be coming as a huge surprise, but the demise of Sony’s UMD format for movies is going away faster than the Mini Disc got shelved for music. This week Sony quietly announced a new entertainment pak called the Memory Stick Entertainment Packs (MSEP) that contained movies on a Sony Memory stick, and many paused to wonder what that meant for the UMD. And now it is official.
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.
Perhaps more disturbing for Sony were unconfirmed reports that retail colossi Wal-Mart and Best Buy were scaling back UMD displays in their stores. This week, speculation turned into reality when Target decided to discontinue stocking UMDs entirely. A manager at a San Francisco Bay Area Target outlet told GameSpot, “We no longer carry PSP movies. We stopped carrying them nationwide.” Source: Gamespot
More About the Memory Stick Entertainment Packs (MSEP)
In typical Sony fashion, moving to the Memory Stick Duo as a movies release platform makes more sense, but the execution is convoluted and expensive. The 1GB version is $60 and the 2GB version $100, and you only get what look to be lame Sony Pictures releases (Hitch, S.W.A.T., The Grudge, or XXX: State of the Union??)- not much of a catalogue. To make matters worse, Sony steps down the resolution to 240×320 instead of the nicer 480×272 the PSP can do. Meanwhile, most people are simply converting DVDs to MPEG-4 and copy movies onto the PSP with a simple USB cable. Don’t expect this new move to change that.
We Say: UMD movies were doomed and so are the lame titles on the Memory Stick Duo. Expect a similar news item on the latest move in even less time. Meanwhile, can Sony or someone please open up a download store, stock it with a solid array of movie titles and let users use their PCs to get movies on the PSP. It’s not rocket science.
ed3 says:
Yet another over-priced proprietary media format is history. Will Sony ever learn? [cough]beta, minidisc, UMD, ?memorystik?, ?blu-ray?[/cough]
July 14th, 2006 at 6:12 am
Alice says:
Good point - Blu-ray is next if history is any indicator.
July 14th, 2006 at 6:31 am
Josh says:
WOO HOO! I’ve been doggin’ the UMD Move format since it launched, and it’s nice to see it tank. ($29.99 for “Are we there yet?” is crazy)
I hope the Blu-Ray format tanks too.
July 14th, 2006 at 6:40 am
Bedammit says:
I expected it.. but
I really liked that I could grab a UMD movie in some of the larger airports.
The encode/download methodology sorta sucks…
Now I have to plan to have a movie and encode and download it.
I am not lazy..
I just have better things to do with my time than to tweak the video or fix the out of sync audio on encoded movies.
I guess I’ll soon be getting an ipod when they release a larger screen.
ho hum
BeDammit
July 14th, 2006 at 7:49 am
MarcosV says:
I bought a used PSP with the older firmware just so that I can watch movies at full LCD resolution from memory sticks pro duo. I wasn’t really interested in playing games on the PSP (I prefer the Nintendo DS for that). When you compare the price of DVDs with UMDs and realize you can rip DVDs and watch them on your PSP using sticks, UMDs don’t make financial sense.
As it is, the cost of 2 GB memory sticks ($82 each) is such that it still is more expensive than I would like. Like an iPod Nano, better decide ahead of time what movies/TV series episodes you want to bring along in advance.
If all you want to do with a PSP size device is watch movies on its excellent LCD, a Cowan A2 30GB for $420 makes more sense than a PSP. For a little more than the cost of a PSP with two 2 GB memory sticks, you get 26 more GB of storage, ability to play media at much higher data rates (at the same LCD screen resolution), and ability to download image files from digital cameras via OTG.
Bundling UMDs with DVDs at slightly higher prices than DVDs alone would make the most sense for the UMD format.
As for Blu Ray, I wonder how durable that media is going to turn out to be? Having the data layer so close to the disk surface that the first design was to enclose the disks in caddies for protection makes me wonder how practical is this format.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:28 am
Damiano says:
The UMD format could have made Sony a fortune - if they charged $7-10 dollars for them. But no. $30. For another 10 bucks, I can get a game. For half that, I can get the higher quality DVD and reencode it. For $7, I’d gladly spring for the convenience. Sony is flat-out clueless.
July 14th, 2006 at 9:19 am
L-bean says:
The only reason why I liked UMD is that they are the only movies you can rent at Gamefly
July 14th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Oznet says:
lets not forget about betamax..
July 14th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Mingus says:
Check out www.123copydvd.com or www.xcopy9.com for apps that rip Hollywood DVDs straight to your PSP or iPod video…
If I like a movie why should I have to buy it twice anyways?
The UMD was doomed to fail (like the memory stick version will) there just aren’t enough PSPs out there to support them…
Sony is done. Unless they can pull a big suprise hit with their PS3, Sony as we know it is over. And they can take their rootkits with them!
July 14th, 2006 at 9:46 am
wah says:
The only thing that could have saved UMD for movies would have been to release a burner for them (and have a decent price, the pricing was insane).
July 14th, 2006 at 11:13 am
durango says:
But they haven’t stop making UMD Porn.
July 14th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Jimmy says:
I wondered why they were selling to start with, so it’s no surprise it’s finally dying. It’s funny, Sony seems to have no clue in so many things, yet they were Top in Annual ‘Best Brands’ Harris Poll for Seventh Consecutive Year.
July 14th, 2006 at 11:51 am
LaurenceN says:
I think the UMD format could have survived, but Sony was a bit too protective and greedy and STUPID. UMD died because the format was for one thing alone, and that was the PSP. If perhaps they made a standalone UMD player the size of a 2.5″ HD or made it so that the PSP could be hooked up to an external monitor like the iPod, I think the UMD would have thrived. If they also made the UMD CHEAPER, it definitely would have done better.
I can’t imagine paying the same price for a UMD movie if I can get the same movie on DVD with better quality for a cheaper price.
I think what kills me about this whole thing is that the UMD had a lot of potential to be something. Too bad that the marketing gurus and management had to eff it all up just so they could scrape more cash to buy their yachts.
July 14th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Ashram says:
I think that many people with sense will not support the Blu-Ray release, primarily because it’s simply another media format change, only unlike the transition from tapes to CDs and that from VHS to DVD, it offers no additional durability or cost effectiveness. The only use it would serve would be to reduce a multi-disc DVD release down to a single disc, but such a narrow advantage will certainly not warrant new hardware and additional costs in the eyes of the savvy consumer, and with digital transfer growing in popularity, I highly doubt there will ever be another successful “hard” format.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Daniel says:
Blu-Ray does offer a lot in terms of durability. That alone makes me (at least kinda) hope it succeeds. Plus, you can put 30-50 GB on BD/HD DVDs. Much higher video and audio quality, too. These HD formats promise more than just fitting multi-discs on to one. It’s gonna take a long while before consumers can easily obtain videos like that without a hard format. Those of us still on dial-up just won’t be able to watch films if we have to download them to own them.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Anonymous says:
Now how will I watch tiny movies?
July 14th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
satan says:
nother betamax… stupid ass sony. i hear games gonna cost like 60-100 bucks a pop for ps3 too.. X_X sorry ps3, thats too much dough. 600$ for ps3 too, what do you think im made of, money?
July 15th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Mobin1 says:
PSP For the Win! Sony for the Win! It will kick your butt
Me love Sony and Sony Love me Woot! I want PSP overthrow DS and the Newcomer might be the MS Xbox Portables (XXP)! NES will die soon in the future just like our poor fave Sega did 
I did understand those UMD movies fail and i hope Sony can do the better work next time but thier Game is still better off then DS. ^_^ I believe Bill Gates is planning to join the HandHeld Gamer Market soon for the Xbox.
July 15th, 2006 at 12:04 am
N says:
I smell a fanboy.
July 15th, 2006 at 3:42 am
Joker says:
Heh, we probably shouldn’t tell Mobin1 that DS is destroying PSP in worldwide sales and that Sony is closer to leaving the video game console business than Nintendo.
July 15th, 2006 at 6:18 am
Kirbyslayer says:
I knew the UMD’s were doomed to fail, but why are people discrediting blu-ray? Seriously, it’s where the future is at. You say you don’t mind using multiple DVD’s? What happens when it gets to where you’re using 20 DVD’s just to play Halo 3(I know it won’t be that big, it’s just for emphasis) when you could use Blu Ray to play it in 2 discs. And, it will be of higher quality than DVD.
July 15th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Readingmuyo says:
I’m not so sure Sony will leave the video game business so soon - remember that they have other markets to make up for their losses. If they go out, they can bide their time and come back. It’s like trying to expterminate an ant’s nest and only managing to get the workers on the surface.
July 15th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Joker says:
I think it’s quite unlikely that Sony will leave the video game business, yes, it’s just that it’s even more unlikely for Nintendo to do so.
July 15th, 2006 at 8:31 am
GG says:
The big problems with Blue-Ray and PS3 is price. The players sofar released for BR are close to $1000. HD-DVD has players out for around $400. With both formats selling movies at about $25. Even at $600 (in part by the BR reader) its $200 more than xbox 360. Plus the cell system used for the PS3 sounds like a programer’s worst nightmare. (from the buggy demo films i have seen as proof) While the 360 is cited as being programer friendly and still powerful enough to crank out HD video games with amazing efects. What we see here is Sony’s overconfidence mixed with shortsided choices. The ONLY market I see the PS3 doing well is in Japan where they have the strongest support. I belive that the american demand for the 360 may make it painfully obvious that they made some blunders.
July 15th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Vyze says:
The only good time to buy UMD movies is when they’re used. You might get one at about 15 dollars, but then you can’t be guaranteed that it’ll even work. So I really don’t like it. I haven’t really heard much about the blu-ray(I don’t really care though, $600 is too much!). So, yeah.
July 15th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Tom says:
Whoever compared nintendo to sega… i just choked on my cereal. Nintendo has always been the king of handhelds because they realize that affordability and convenience are far more important than looks and high-end technology. Trying to make the graphics in games look more realistic and defined will only go so far. Nintendo was the first to realize this with their two-screen development of the DS and now the control system for the nintendo Wii. It is about product differentiation and innovation. I predict sony will lose a lot of support from game producers before nintendo even loses a little pace in the gaming market.
July 15th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Gantiz says:
Duh, anyone with eyes could have seen this coming. Sony took their PS2 to the bank while Nintendo and Microsoft have released multiple systems since then.
Sony is overconfident and is now lacking behind the once, almost dead Nintendo.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Whitecat31 says:
I just bought a 2MB duo card off eBay for about 56 dollars. I suppose they will get cheaper and cheaper. Math wise, I would be paying 44 dollars for a movie since they are making the 2mb a 100 dollar card. That seems like really stupid, especially with memory prices always dropping.
Speaking of really stupid, we really should keep people who disguise fake comments to lure us to Far rightwing political websites from posting here. UMD porn my rear. Screw you Durango. I wandered through that crap of Republican talking points looking for a UMD porn link. The only raping I saw was America by your Right wing brethren. In some sense I am not surprised. When has a Republican told the truth anyway?
July 15th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
PSP Images says:
They should have done a better marketing and released more short tv series/comedies on UMD Movie. Also I think Blu-ray will be a big hit it has a much higher capacity then HD-DVD, every PS3 sold is a Blu-ray player and many big movie companies are supporting it.
July 15th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Donte says:
………. First off the umd format thing was a waste of time and money, second the blu-ray thing is just sony’s way of making another beta-max. Look at the standing
Sony- Beta Max, Mini disk, UMD, ALL DIED.
now with the Mem stick, I dont think it will go far charging $100 for 2 Gigs? Thats crazy. I bought a 160 gig HD for bout $75, and 2 512 gig’s of Ram for 70. So whats with the mark up? Either way its gonna flop. The Blu-ray letme see. Well durability is a question with the data being so close to the disk surface. Plus Games being $100 a shot? No thanks. Sony is just bring out the blu-ray to make up for a dead beta-max. Its gonna die.
And with what Mobin1 posted? What the hell are you smoking? One thing that ive noticed is that Sony Fanboys are generally like that, I have a “friend” like that.
With the OMG and WTF and woot!!!11! and all the dumb shit. Oh and dont forget “SONY ROKS”. Word of advice. Move your punk asses out of your mommy’s basement and GET A LIFE!
If ive offended anybody im sorry….except for the sony fan boys.
July 15th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Jason says:
I saw this one coming from a mile away. Now really, how often do you need to use the PSP for movies? Think about it, you can buy a low end portable DVD player for less than a hundred dollars. Now sure, picture quality won’t be that perfect, but you won’t have to spend the extra money buying all those titles you want to watch on the road in UMD. And with the extra money you save on that, you can buy a REAL portable game system, the DS.
I’m one of the 10 people worldwide that still rocks a Mini Disc walkman. I love them. 5 hours on one disc and with the cost of the discs down to less than a dollar each, you really can’t go wrong. Sure, you have to transfer each one over, but with walkman’s going for about 100 bucks, you can buy the walkman then 40 dollars with of MD’s and never really need to worry about it again. I’ve also got one of the only PC’s with a built in MD player/recorder. Yes, I’m clinging to a dead format, but I’ll rock MD’s until they become impossible to find.
As for the PS3… I work at Gamestop and have been noticing a declining excitement for the PS3 and a more accepting view on the new Wii. If the big N can get strong third party support in this generation, I think that they have a strong chance of being the leader. My only reasoning that they can be Microsoft now is the lack of duarbility on the 360. I’ve seen quite a few people bringing back 360’s that are broken. Seems the 360 is going to have the same problem the PS2 did in terms of quality. But with the 360 finally hitting its stride with games (Oblivion, DOA4, Chromehounds, and Prey), I think it could be a tight race. I think the Wii will be number one in Japan at least with the 360 snubbing it a bit in the US. I think the PS3 could be running the risk of going the way of the Jaguar, Lynx, Dreamcast, Saturn, CDi,…need I go on. Sony seems to have become far to arrogant and I think they could pay the price for it with the PS3.
One last thing I noticed, is it just me, or is the DS Lite now selling more the PSP period. I’m not talking recently, but I’ve seen more DS Lites move off the shelf in the few weeks its been out than I’ve seen new PSP’s move period. Even used ones. We have about 8-10 used PSP’s just sitting there not selling. We got in 2 used DS Lites and they were gone the same day.
July 15th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Ed3 says:
Blu-Ray - Best Buy currently has ONE BD player made by Samsung. Costs over $1000. I dare you to find a Best Buy employee that has anything good to say about it. As a matter of fact, my Best Buy has two open units on their clearance table.
MemoryStik - Name three non-Sony device (excluding memory readers) that uses Memorstik. As for MS + PSP for movies… erm… I’d be better off with a $150 iPaq and a 2GB SD/CF card…
July 15th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Chris says:
Sony’s gotten too far overconfident, which is saying alot seeing as their previous media formats all bombed.
I agree with the DS thing; I heard that the DS Lite was so popular that almost anyplace that stocked it on release was sold out the same day, or at most within the week.
July 15th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
rain says:
thought they’d learn from nintendos gameboy video series, but no, guess they thought any sort of video on a portable system wud’ve done well especially there’s, ah well not our fault.
July 15th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
NoobixCube says:
People should really stop knocking the Blu-Ray format. I’m sure once High Definition Plasma TVs cost less than your average household car, then people rolling in money might spend that little extra bit of cash on a PS3 and replace their entire movie collection with something so imperceptibly much higher in quality that the human eye can barely tell the difference past the age of 30.
We all know that no matter what Sony tries, they’ll just screw it up. When the time for a larger data format comes, some other company will come in with a reasonably priced format which isn’t ludicrously large. I mean, what the fuck is a developer going to do with a 50GB disc when I haven’t seen a single console game go over one DVD (4.7GB). Correct me if I’m wrong, but part of the reason the PS2 was a DVD format console was basically just for Final Fantasy, because Final Fantasy 7, 8 and 9 each took up three, four and four discs respectively. Until we see a Final Fantasy take up three or four DVDs, I doubt very much that we’ll need a larger format.
July 15th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Justin says:
Well, the whole idea of not seeing a game larger than one DVD doesn’t mean it cannot be done. A lot of games couldn’t be done on multiple DVD’s but could be done on a much larger scale with 10 times the capacity.
Look at PC games right now. Back in the old days, games came with one installation CD and took up about 500 MB. And there were some really great games. Now games can easily take up 5 GB or more if they want to.
Graphics take up space, dialogs take up space, content takes up space, play modes take up space, music takes up space. A lot of things take up space and if you increase the graphics, music, voice-overs, a lot of space gets taken up really quickly.
I can see all those open ended games like sports in particular, really blossoming with increased capacity. “Why didn’t Madden have this, this and this?” Lack of space on the disk and you can’t make a football game across two disks without being a pain in the rear. With 10 times the size of the disk, you can increase the realism and gameplay by 10. The first games won’t do this because publishers won’t be used to having so much size, but once they realize they came cram everything AND the kitchen sink into a BR disk, the games will hit a new potential far beyond what the other systems could ever reach in their current state.
Obviously more space is good, we wouldn’t buy multiple GB HD’s if it wasn’t in demand. Sony is just giving developers that space and we’ll see just how far they run with it. I’m guessing a marathon and a half.
July 16th, 2006 at 3:12 am
InsanitysMonkey says:
The death of the Umd doesnt effect me since handhelds never appealed to me (except maybe a nintendo, I want games on a game system. not movies music and internet downloads) Nor do the memory sticks effect me..
The blue ray however, is probably worth the price. now it doesnt change the fact that we all gonna camp in our houses and work with a xbox or wii until the ps3 price drops.
Any true gamer in here that tells me they do not anticipate some of the games ps3 is showing right now is lieing point blank. ffXIII alone is worth that disc price.. the price is insane, but how many will be stopped because of it?
Im not taking either side in this case, time will tell if blue ray suceeds. and I wont be getting a ps3 at launch.. this season is a wii, because to me most worthwhile xbox games end up on pc..
XP say what you wish to this comment, it will only mildly change my belief on the subject. i tend to avoid the war of the hardcore nerds
July 16th, 2006 at 3:46 am
thekittenofterra says:
Fanboys the lot of you. The only compelling argument I’ve seen is the space expanding one from Justin. The 360 isn’t a brick anymore, but it still rocks and Nitendo will make a killing. The PS3 cost too much, and will fail, along with Blu-Ray. If we need space, it HD-DVD, and I even think that is iffy. We need to wait for Holographic disks in about… Five-ten years. Thats next generation consoles. Which the PS4 won’t be a big player (if a player at all) and the Xbox 720 and the Nintendo Whatever will peacefully be the players. Then the Xbox 1080, and Nintendo, and by that time, games will be so realistic, that Microsoft will merge with Nintendo and take over the world. The End.
Anyways, anyone who thinks all good Xbox titles are going to the PC, is a Sony fanboy, or someone who is a complete idiot. Racing games suck ass on PCs, and many others like, GRAW, aren’t worth playing on anything but an Xbox.
July 16th, 2006 at 5:41 am
thekittenofterra says:
Fanboys the lot of you. The only compelling argument I’ve seen is the space expanding one from Justin. The 360 isn’t a brick anymore, but it still rocks and Nitendo will make a killing. The PS3 cost too much, and will fail, along with Blu-Ray. If we need space, it HD-DVD, and I even think that is iffy. We need to wait for Holographic disks in about… Five-ten years. Thats next generation consoles. Which the PS4 won’t be a big player (if a player at all) and the Xbox 720 and the Nintendo Whatever will peacefully be the players. Then the Xbox 1080, and Nintendo, and by that time, games will be so realistic, that Microsoft will merge with Nintendo and take over the world. The End.
Anyways, anyone who thinks all good Xbox titles are going to the PC, is a Sony fanboy, or someone who is a complete idiot (oh wait, thats the same thing!). Racing games suck ass on PCs, and many others like, GRAW, aren’t worth playing on anything but an Xbox.
July 16th, 2006 at 5:41 am
GG says:
Your right Terra, I want some of the games coming out on the PS3. Will i buy one to play them? NO. Would i pay $80 to $100 for 1 game? No.
Between two identicle products, the cheapest product wins. Why? People like saving money. SIMPLE AS THAT!
July 16th, 2006 at 8:38 am
omechron says:
@Kitten: The guy who mentioned X-Box titles comming out on PC said the only worthwhile titles TO HIM. Meaning the ones that HE was interested in. You mention racing games, for example. Well, I happen to not like racing games AT ALL.
To this day, the only titles that make me even want to consider a regular X-Box are Panzer Dragoon Orta and Jade Empire. Halo = Not that great and comming to PC anyway where I can play it with a mouse and therefor not die immediately. Knights of the Old Republic came out on PC. That’s really the only things from the X-Box lineup that appealed to me.
Re: UMDs: Yeah, this doesn’t surprise me even a little. The idea of watching a movie on the PSP never really appealed to me in the first place. Games are better than movies to me so I was never really interested to begin with.
Re: Blu-ray: We’ll have to wait and see on this one. It won’t do much yet but if sony sticks to its guns and works out the technology so it can bring the price down, then I can see a market. I can totally see coughing up 1000 for a Blu-ray BURNER. That way I can finally get some of these downloaded series archives off my hard drive. Burning off seasons of fansubbed anime takes up a LOT of DVDs. Buying entire box sets on one disk definately has its appeal. Didn’t I hear someplace that TV series’ are outselling movies in terms of DVD sales?
July 16th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Dusk says:
Let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? The reason why Sony won’t go ahead with the idea to open a download store & let people transfer films to their PSPs is the same reason why MD failed: DRM.
Like Jason I loved my Net MD walkman, but the one thing that constantly pissed me off was the simple fact that while you could transfer songs off the PC onto disc, you couldn’t transfer anything you recorded on disc over to the PC. Why? Sony’s crazy-ass obsession with trying to control what YOU do with YOUR copy of any given media. After all, heaven forbid they lose out on $2 worth of profit because someone recorded a concert instead of buying the live CD! For all the measures they have enacted to keep the pirates at bay, what have they actually achieved in that area? What has actually changed?
Diddley-squat, that’s what.
The pirating community will always be one step ahead of the corporations, & no amount of litigating or built-in failsafes will alter that. Going back to the Net MD, Sony lost there because someone went & released a patch for their software that lets you upload media from the MD to PC, thus negating all their carefully implemented DRM.
Not that that will stop Sony’s control-freak crusade, unfortunately. :>((
July 16th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Crispy says:
I’m actually kind of bummed… There’s only a few games on the PSP that hold my interest, but with all the travelling I do, I love the movies on UMD! I don’t know where some of y’all are shopping, but at stores like Walmart or Best Buy, I never saw the movies for more than $22, usually around $15. Worked for me. I’ll miss the little, non-complicated disks.
July 16th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
Zare says:
Blu-ray will definitely succeed…TV-series are outselling movies, so by taking a box set and reducing it to a single disc will appeal to many people. As far as the people talking about all X-box games coming out on PC…I did read that bungie and microsoft plan to release Halo 2 around the time of Vista’s release…not that I will actually by Vista just to play Halo 2…I’m just saying that they may actually be right. The HD-DVD will thrive only until the makers of Blu-ray and HD-DVD can finally come to a compromise like they were orriginally planning and release some sort of HD-Blu-Ray Disc. That was their orriginal plan in the first place but the 2 makers couldn’t agree on anything so they gave it up and released to seperate disc types. I did read that one company is attempting to create a cross dual layer. It will contain a dual-layer HD-DVD crossed with a dual-layer Blu-Ray allowing for about 80 Gig of space and retaining the bonuses of both. Though this disc will not have the other advantage of Blu-Ray being that it is expected to be capable of 4-layer, unlike HD-DVD, allowing for 100 Gig of memory. This will appeal to the Anime community in that they will be able to fit entire series of anime like Naruto onto a single disc. (Please note that I’m not an anime fan, I am simply stating a point.) The main appeal of the PS3 to many people is that it is the one of the cheapest Blu-Ray players that will be available on the market plus it is capable of playing awesome Final Fantasy games. As far as I’m concerned…for ($i=1;$i>0;$i++){$blu-ray=$woot;} Call me a Sony fanboy if you want, but you can’t argue with a perl infinite loop.
July 16th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Crisis says:
In response to Dusk, actually, in sony’s brilliant attempt to stop pirating, the psp is made for pirating. Pirated movies and pirated music are both things that work very well on the psp. Hell, buy a psp, a memory stick, and download a p2p program and you can have all the movies and music you want.
July 16th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Zeronifty says:
I see alot of people dogging the PS3 but you know what? I am a manager of a gamestore and I get 5-10 people calling A DAY asking when the PS3 is comming out and when they can pre-order them…go into your local videogame store they will tell you the same thing. Now for the UMD format…it was crap to begin with and I am not surprised it failed, Nintendos WII will be an awsome Party console and the 360 will deffinatly come up in the next few months with the release of Lost Planet and Gears of War….only reason that everyone seems to have a problem with the PS3 is the price, which yes, is alittle on the high side but for what your paying and what your getting….it is worth it. So stop crying about how the PS3 “Sucks so bad cause the price is sooooo high!” it is a solid machine and should be given the respect that it deserves just like the WII “despite the horrible name” and the Xbox 360
July 16th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Titanhex says:
Many a good point here. Gotta wonder if I’ll be adding anything new to this. Well, go watch G4TV sometime if you wanna know indepth the console wars, both handheld and otherwise. Despite it’s akward transition to be a mirror of Spike TV, it does retain it’s love for video games.
Nintendo will always hold the Handheld trophy, at least until someone does it better. Frankly, that hasn’t happened yet and I’m sure the date is far off. My interest in handhelds is minimal though.
The PS3 is expensive, but it does have a ton of potential. Just like the Wii, there’s a great deal of risk involved in what they’re doing. Many won’t be able to afford the 600$ console, considering the age deomgraphic of your respective gamer. But it’s capabilities as both a gamer player and media center far outdoes it’s rivals.
The Xbox 360 had a horribly rough start in their haste towards the holiday season. They’re making up for it by responsive support though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS3 ended up being ahead of it’s time. Not a lot of people are in need of the infinite capabilities, but no doubt fan boys will help push the PS3 along. We already know how the Xbox 360 is doing. At this point we’re hot in the middle of two great risk takers, the Wii and the PS3. Will both come out unscathed? Yeah, I dunno. At least the Wii’s fate will be decided not long after it’s launch. The PS3 will have us waiting though.
I really hope Xbox doesn’t enter the handheld arena. God knows we don’t need ANOTHER VG Console fudging itself over. I suppose someone has to at least pretend they’re challenging Nintendo. You know, so as not to make them look like a monopoly.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:16 am
-DV says:
Blueray should do fine. The caddie was a part of the first computer CD-rom drives, if you recall. It’s just a new transative element because it actually IS a step up over the other garbage they’re putting out.
Also, people like all their disks to fit in the same case as stupid as it sounds. Blueray is the same size and people like the circular little pieces of plastic a lot more than other wierd looking things.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:24 am
GG says:
The problem is that BluRay is NOT the only large capacity solution. The HD-DVD still delivers large capacity like the BluRay with more affordable players.
As for the PS3… I don’t know game stores you all work at but at Wal-Mart I hear more and more questions about the 360 vs. the PS3. I tell them the same thing: “upwards of $600 with accessories and another $70+ for a game” the reaction: “Really? That’s too much.”
Caddies: There are reasons that CDs are not in caddies any more: production costs that are passed onto the consumer, better materials used in production, and more reliable readers. (For me personally if the BR needs a caddie that means it’s too fragile to be used in a day to day environment. As such I wouldn’t recommend them to a customer.) The fact that BR movies don’t come in a caddie means that it is unlikely that the PS3 would need them.
To be honest, the Wii with its lower cost and available library of previous generation games for rent has potential. (Even if the controller gives you arthritis.)
July 17th, 2006 at 6:40 am
Johnny Neanderthal says:
I personally asked an employee of a local Sony store how durable the Blu-ray disc is, and he said he took one of the razors used to cut open the packages across the bottom of the disc and it didn’t scratch. Blu-ray discs are made of a hard, high-quality polymer that resists scratches and prevents data loss.
July 17th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Spastic says:
Not surprised.. I was never interested in a PSP. A console is only as good as the games that come out for it. I refuse to pay $600 for a PS3 (unless I resell it on eBay) with games at extraordinary prices. I’m a college student, I like video games, but I don’t like high prices. If I buy anything, I’ll stick with the Wii.. Nintendo has always been more cost friendly and I really enjoy their first party games. But for now I’m satisfied playing games for my GC and mooching my friend’s PS2. Both have really great games released and the games, not the consoles, are the things that really matter.
July 17th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Turtle says:
I knew this was coming the day I bought my PSP. UMD isn’t a bad game-delivery and storage medium, bt you’d have to be a moron to buy movies on UMD. The day the DVD version of “National Treasure” came out, I was at FYE in the mall. The UMD version was $40, playable only on a Sony PlayStation Portable. The DVD version on the next rack, playable on any of my several home and portable DVD players, any of my computers, and rippable and convertible to play on my iPod or my PSP, was… $20.
You’d have to be retarded to seriously look at UMD for what should be downloadable media. Sony has a long history of thinking they can be the next IBM, and somehow lock hundreds of millions of consumers into buying Sony content just by coming up with another weird-ass media format. And yes, I’ll intone the list of wild failures: Beta and all its children, prerecorded 3″ CDs (though I admit, I do have a bunch of those because they’re cute and play in normal hardware), read-only MiniDisc, UMD, and now Blu-Ray.
They are so over.
July 17th, 2006 at 11:06 am
terminator t-2 says:
Sony == greedy and stupid morons
July 17th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Hill Gamer says:
even though I’m a hillbilly living out in the middle o’ nowhere I’ve managed to keep a good pace on theses things, I have a GC,PS2, and an Xbox. I’ve seen that over time some of nintendos games have become a little childish and unappeasing to higher age groups. This is where I love the PS2, it’s more mature games. I think this is where Sony fell into the pitfall, thinking “they’ll buy our games at a high price since their more maturish”. The Xbox 360 sounds awsome even with the glitch sith the fan that made it tear up. (have they fixed that yet?) My cousins said the PS3 would blow the Xbox out of the water, but now I’m leaning towards my old friend Nintendo and my beloved first person shooters on the Xbox. (I never found the PS2’s 1st-shooters to be as great, the Xbox controler is much more adeptable. I played Halo on the Xbox much more than Killzone on the PS2)Theres no way in hell I’d pay (or be able to) $1000 dollars for a system and 4 games. I’m gonna go with the Nintendo Wii (god what and awful name! I liked Revolution much better) I like old games alot. In a few years I might pick up an Xbox 360 online to play Halo, but I doubt I’ll be adding that horrificly overpriced thing to my collection anytime soon.
July 18th, 2006 at 2:36 am
Realistic says:
Ahahahahaha(cough)oh man i cant help laugh man…..I KNEW the umd would die because sony is money hungry. PS3 for $600 aha! like im gonna beg my parents for that.Sony is gonna drop out of the gaming industry sooner than i expected if they keep making such EXPESIVE consoles.For the record my psp is only for decoration purposes only (DS is my portable gaming choice).
July 19th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Realistic says:
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha i cant help it its funny.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Vladamir says:
As I’m sure we can all agree on (ha), the UMD format, at least where the movies and music were concerned, was doomed to fail. There were just too many other options, more resonably priced and with higher compatiblity with other medias. As for the PS3…http://www.us.playstation.com/News/PressReleases/341
For those that don’t like linking, the US offical release will cost $499 with a 20 gig drive and $599 with a 60 gig drive. I suspect some wiz will have a way of hooking up any size PC-HD to it within a week of its release, so I don’t expect the 60 gig varient to last long at all. As for the price of the games, sony has not released any official word as to the price, but I would be surprised indeed if they were more then $69 a pop….which given the rate of inflation since the relese of the PS2 sounds right on the mark.
July 20th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Realistic says:
……I knew that i was just joking man.By now anybody who follows up on gaming news knows that the PS3 will do the same thing microsoft did….(motion sencor part is a mini ripp off the nintendo wii.)
July 20th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Aerokii says:
Hmm. As I read this article, I’m reminded of another article I saw on another site not too long ago. It was about a certain handheld console that failed miserably, and I’m not going to name names… ‘cept it started with an N, and it was also used as a cell phone. Wonderful ideas, eh?
Anyway, in that article, Nokia was finally admitting that their system was a failure. Keeping in mind this article was released years after the console was no longer being sold to anyone… or no one was buying it. I don’t remember which.
THe point of this all is, someone posted an article about something we all knew was a failure, and we all knew before that ,was doomed to BE a failure at a later date.
The same concept applies to the UMD’s, and possibly, the PSP in general. It wasn’t doomed from the start, it had potential… but lets take a look at this.
Things the PSP has attempted: Play Movies, Play Music, and, to a lesser extent, Play Games.
Things the PSP has failed at: Music, Movies, and Games, which have been a constant dissappointment.
Things the PSP has succeeded at, oh so ironically: Piracy.
‘Nuff said.
July 21st, 2006 at 5:12 pm
David from OHIO says:
Just so you guys know,
Blu-Ray is actually better than HD-DVD’s in a lot of ways.
Especially important to data/audiophiles:
Supreme Supreme Supreme Durability (mentioned above, and very amazing)
and…..
about 11-13 (cant remember exactly) MORE GB [gigabytes,
] on a single disc
this means better quality, and room for extras, (and as someone mentioned above, if you so chose, entire series or trilogies or whatever on a single disc) not that I care, but some people do,
AND, I think its fair to say that once more combo drives (BURNING/READING/PLAYERS) come out for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray,
BR may take over the market…be ready.
Also, If you happen to get a blu-ray reader for your PC,
with the right software, you can finally do a standard read Rip of
X-Box games, instead of having to network with your pC, because, they’re read with a bluray proprietary technology, and once Read, can be burnt by your good ole DVD-R drive…smiles all around
peace inward
DS is sweet
July 21st, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Rohk says:
I think the reson behind overpriced junk by sony is not so much greed as stupidity. You see Sony is not a gaming company, it is a hardware company as far as I can tell. Sony doesn’t realize that in gaming, unlike say TV, high quality hardware does not win. Games win. Nintendo knows this and that is how they survive, top-notch first party games. I may be just plain ignorant here but I can’t think of any first party successes from sony. They are trying to play the TV manifacture game in a video game world.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:25 pm
GG says:
Final Fantasy (any). Squaresoft is for all intents and puroposes Sony’s child company. But your right, I like the games i see on xbox and Game cube better than the ones i have seen for PS2. (with the exception of the gundam games.
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:16 am
GG says:
The cell system has even bigger potential for servers and the like in other theaters besides gaming. IBM helped desing with this in mind. I’ve heard of other cell systems that are moreointed towards server applications. Don’t get me wrong, I still think the PS3 will fail but the cell system will live on for some heavy duty server apps in the future.
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:21 am
Realistic says:
yo…. what is a Cell system?
July 23rd, 2006 at 5:55 pm
GG says:
Thats the name for the processeror and the system of subprocesserors used in the Ps3 core.
July 29th, 2006 at 7:27 am
GGGGGGGGG says:
You guys are crazy, Beta was better quality than VHS, VHS just saturated the market. I guess it’s a moot point now, though, since DVD is infinitely better than both of them.
August 1st, 2006 at 5:02 pm
search engine says:
search now
August 6th, 2006 at 2:50 am
Joe says:
I don’t know about u guys but but I’m a fan of whoever comes out with the best product. I own a PS2 for the graphics/maturity and the GC for the games (Zelda, Super Smash Bros, etc…). I’ll probably buy PS3 just cuz Sony intrigues me. I know in the long run it might be a waste of money, but I’m not looking for the PS3 last 10-15 yrs. Tech will always thwart that.
I will also be purchasing the Wii, just for the classic games Nintendo always improves upon. Never got into the Xbox or the 360 and I know people swear on it. Sony and Microsoft only released a few titles exclusivly so I just stuck with Sony cuz it was what i know and have not been disappointed by any of their other products (if that makes me a fanboy F it)
UMD’s= very disappointing
BR= promising (we’ll see)
August 11th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
Joel Chevalier says:
Please!!! Bring back UMD Movies back on the shelves for the stores like Walmart and etc. I find buying a UMD movie better then downloading one off the internet.
August 24th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
ShadowLife » Blog Archive » Sony, you suck, and your sucky formats suck even more… says:
[…] With Target and Wal-mart scaling back or ceasing to carry Sony’s UMD format Sony is planning to distribute formats on memory sticks… […]
December 26th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
AllMyLiesAreWishes.com says:
[…] “Well, I was thinking about it. Then I saw that another one of your formats was just shitcanned.” […]
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:34 pm
curt says:
Please!!! Bring back UMD Movies back on the shelves for the stores like Walmart and etc. I find buying a UMD movie better then downloading one off the internet.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
kyuuketsukitales says:
I kind of want to buy a psp really just cuz my ds’ top screen joint got cracked, flops around and i’m really looking for better grahics (3D, more interesting games
It sounds cool i’m not really interested in many multimedia aspects although if i get one i might put some TV shows from iTunes on it
Sony’s ps3 is way overpriced i would only consider buying it if I had a considerable arsenal of PS2 games, my ps2 broke, and i wanted a Blu-Ray player really bad
Pretty specific eh
little too specific for somthin that’ll set you back 600 bucks
i loved my ps2 but now all the good games are bein released on next gen consoles!!! I own a wii and like xbox 36o’s
I also owned a ds lite, a gameboy sp, and a gameboy color, but the psp has the best graphics for a handheld system by far even if UMDs are dyin
December 9th, 2007 at 8:32 am
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May 18th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Andy says:
Watching films on a little screen? It was a stupid idea to begin with.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Jose J says:
Well here’s another advanced game system that is about to go the way of the I’ll fated Dreamcast. Slowly developers are stopping support. Soon people will be giving PSPs away. Remember the GD-Rom? Now UMD is bound to follow suit very shortly.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:50 am
GMac says:
The PSP is a great movie device for frequent travelers like myself. However, UMDs were doomed from the beginning. Why would I pay $10+ for the UMD when I can buy the DVD and rip the movie to my mediastick (or 5 movies!!)? Unless they would have found a way to make and sell these things for the cost of a DVD rental, there was no way they could have been successful. C’mon Sony, we’re not stupid.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am
rtruck says:
WOW ! What a bunch of bitter,basement living,mommy lovin geeks.If any of you commensenceless gigadorks put half the energy into real life ,you would all be better people….GET A LIFE !!!!!
August 5th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
情趣用品 says:
QQ
December 17th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Nick says:
Well, I just got a PSP, and, mostly to watch UMD movies. They are perfect for me, since I’m usually traveling, or in a stand-by mode.
This is an interesting thread, because, it was started in early 2006, and was stated to be a “dead” format. But now, even in 2009, there are TONS of new UMD movies available! And, I usually find them for about $9.99.
I think there perfect for hassle-free, pop-in-and-go entertainment. Even some movies that are only available on DVD, you can find boot-legged for $10 (note: I DO NOT condone boot-leg UMD’s, but if its not being released on UMD…..)
Anyway, for a format that was said to have died 3 years ago, I think its doing pretty well.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
you guys suck says:
Okay guys, Its 2009 and UMD is still around… and the PSP only gets better… So… Suck it.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Stephen says:
Well I cannot determine if UMD has “tanked” or not. There is so much misinformation on the web. Still I would like to add this comment. Having just returned from a one week vacation and watching several UMD movies both on and off the plane, I continue to be amazed at the beauty of the screen. I have heard it described as a minature plasma and totally agree. I have a iPOD touch 32g with several movies but the picture quality while very good does not begin to compare to the plasma like beauty of UMD’s on PSP. I hope this format continues for a long long time.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am