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PSP's movie-viewing feature days numbered? |
Listed in: News, UMD Movies Tags:
There's some rage against the machine -- or at least one of its features.Flow of movies in Universal Media Disc format has dramatically slowed down following disappointing sales and now has threatened the much-heralded Sony PSP's feature. Two major studios have already completely stopped producing movies on UMD; a good number of other studios are expected to follow suit. Even retailers are shoving the items to a small corner of their store shelves; Wal-Mart is about to dump the category entirely.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely shunned the UMD-movie production; One high-ranking executive commented that the situation is awful and that "sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-ray."
Even Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment is said to be contemplating on aborting the UMD business. Spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone said that "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," adding that "Our focus right now is much more aimed at HD (high-definition) at the moment, though."
Image Entertainment has confirmed that it is out, while other studios -- including 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment -- is perceived to be on their way there.
"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."
The speculated reason behind the said immediate decline in sales is the dubious marketing moves by the studios themselves. The initial sales were really strong, producers, perhaps sensing a gold-rush equal to 1849, then began to release too many movies, too fast. This somehow affected the consumers' interest as they start to veer away from the UMD's -- talk about maximum overload. It didn't help that Apple's video iPod took the limelight.
Sony, thru Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president Benjamin Feingold, is still optimistic about their hand-held movie-watching feature, revealing that plans of making the PSP connectable to TV sets for big-screen viewing (I thought there were other gadgets specifically made for that, like let's say, THE DVD PLAYER?!) are being finalized to draw back the public's interest.
"We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback," he added. I believe there's a word for that, quixotic, you can even say, desperate.| This story sucks? This story rocks! |
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Comments
-fool
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If companies can sell UMD's for about $10 each, then sales would boom. Until then more people will buy the DVD and if they want they will transfer it to their Memory Stick.
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Package UMDs with DVDs for a reasonable price ($5 over the price of either one individually)
Provide a cheap (read $20-$30) hardware link between the TV and the PSP that uses standard AV hookups, have the ability to charge the PSP, and will work with current gen PSPs (IE, don't make it standard on some PSP lite or whatever). Granted, it would probably require a firmware update, but people using 1.5 are probably watching movies off of their memory cards anyways.
If Sony does this, the UMD sales might pick up again. The PSP is a fine piece of hardware, and great for viewing movies on in a car or airplane, but it shouldn't be the only place a particular medium can be used. I have the Spiderman 2 UMD that came with my PSP and have watched it once, on a transatlantic flight. That's it. I've watched far more video on my memory sticks.
~Nec
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i ask hey how much u get that movie
they say yea i jacked it
i say is it easy
they say hell yea all u do is take the movies u want go to a empty isle and take something to cut plastic open up take umd and bone outta there
my homie sells umd's movies for like 5 bucks.
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And the crappy price dosn't help.
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There are three reasons that I don't buy any UMD movies:
1. price: there is no price advantage to buy UMD compared to DVD
2. conversion: I can convert DVDs to PSP format (PMP) but not the other way around
last but certainly not least:
3. firmware updates: not entirely sure about this, but it appears that are movies that force you to update the firmware. I want to keep my virgin 1.50 US that way.
So for me to buy UMDs:
1. should work with firmware 1.50 and
2. be half the price of the corresponding DVD release at any time
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stick to stealing Intelectual Property off the Internet. All artists/programmers/etc should shut up and make me more crap to steal.
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I think that's the best idea. I had hoped for this when the UMD movies were first announced. I'd be willing to pay a few extra dollars to get the DVD and portable UMD in the same package... but I'm not willing to pay full price TWICE to get the same movie in two formats. If it comes down to DVD vs UMD, I'll take DVD every time since that's the format out of which I'll get the most use.
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unles you have a large collection of music, gba roms, and snes roms. and in the future psx games and N64 roms.
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If I do buy a movie why would I buy a UMD and not a DVD???
You can always rip the dvd to memory card... you cant watch UMD on ure tv unless you buy some expencive ass hardware.
Maybe sony will release a burner now that they realise how *****ty it is to make EVERYTHING propriatary...
Sorry Sony YOU LOOSE!
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That being said, I truly enjoy my PSP and the family guy episodes I ripped from my legally owned DVD seasons to put on it. I do watch videos in short duration, and would on some occasion watch longer movies, but so infrequently that its not worth more than $10 a UMD to me. Great product Sony (PSP), now get your ***** together and make more good games and drop the Sony movie price to 9.99. And release OEM faceplates already, the damn thing's not scratch proof and 3rd party manufacturers are making a killing off your hesitation to do so.
Ludikhris
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2. Don't release crappy movies for over 10 dollars. We see through your little scheme, you bastards.
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But yeah..... umd movies need to be cheaper than dvd's. period.
And there needs to be a psp to tv thingy fast. A good easy one.
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i don't think sony read these blogs, marketing departments and stuff really think they know what the consumer wants, and don't listen to the consumer.
the ps1 emulator thing is a surprise to me, as it seems sony has listened in that respect. but look at the firmware thing, if they really cared what the psp community thought they'd not release the firmwares and intentionally kill homebrew.
homebrew etc would be well good with umd-r or something like that... just imagine...
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It's faster than downloading.
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2. Release UMD-R in the future, proprietary formats are ideas from outer-space for us.
3. Listen to the community, the retarded that give ideas atSony don't know WHAT we want and in wich way the PSP should go to get his place ine Handhelds, we want the PSP to be #1, but you Sony, is just hesitating on grant possibilities of accessories, releasing news thing more often on firmwares and making UMD movies going dead...
Plus, we all know you hate homebrews, so create some, and release it on firmwares, so in taht way, that's gonna be a major point to leave 1.5 and 2.0 fw.
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Id buy loads at these prices...who wouldnt? Id still get the UMD even if i had the DVD because they are different formates for different screen sizes..simple!
Im waiting for the dvd stores to start selling off all their UMD stocks at rock bottom prices.
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Ghostbusters did well at the theatres.... and is a great movie to boot. But, meh, each to their own.
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I've got a 1.5 machine with the UMD drive removed,
in another words: with a space for a 4GB INTERNAL HD,
or lots of space for having MS cards or an extra (smaller) accu with you.
The machine worx perfectly without the drive.
Just try it. ..oor if anybody interested in my one
mrn| at| post| dot|cz
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There is absolutely no reason to buy a UMD movie instead of a DVD. The picture quality is not as good, and without a PSP to TV adapter Sony doesn't support iit only plays on the PSP. Given this, and since DVD sales are not hurting it seems safe to conclude that lack of interest in UMDs amounts to customers being offended at asking to pay full price a second time in order to use content they have already purchased. As movie and music studios adopt business plans that try to double dip (charge for the optical disc, charge for the download, and prohibit converting the two) in the next generation content delivery they should take heed customers are not going to take it laying down!
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I easely thought there wore more products coming to support the format.
The resolution and sound channels does´nt make it competetive against DVD´s in our home but just think of other places.
For example in car entertainment, If you could have a UMD player in your car instead of a DVD that would be a logical product, the UMD´s are smaller the sound(2channel) and the resolution (less then a DVD) is just perfect for car entertainmet where you dont need fulllblown 5.1 sound.
Same thing about a little player for your tv in your summer place, boat, caravan and so on.
Basicaly the format need more players other then the PSP to survive!
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Note the keywords "next-generation". In other words, what Mr. FeinGOLD is really trying to say is...
"If you buy a PS3 for $700, and a PSP for $200-$250, we'll let you output your movies THROUGH THE PS3 to your big screen. That way we make sure you can't output them directly to your computer or some other source by having the PS3 converter be proprietary and DRM laden."
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Sony... Ya screwed up once with Beta... Get us a UMD player, or you are signing your own death warrant. Lower prices on the UMD's would be cool too, but if you guys don't get off your bums we won't have to worry about prices. We'll be getting UMD movies pretty cheaply on clearance racks!
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