MovieTech: UMD takes on the World
Filed under: Tech Stuff
When I first heard the PSP, Sony's handheld gaming system, was going to have the ability to play movies, I knew it was going to fail. I mean, who would buy into it? Well, it looks like I was wrong. USA Today reports that Sony's House of Flying Daggers and Resident Evil 2 (both released April 19) have now sold more than 100,000 copies each on UMD. Sony calls the sales tally "remarkable," noting that it took nine months for their first DVD title, Air Force One, to cross the 100,000-unit mark. More than 70 UMD titles are in stores or are scheduled to arrive in the coming months, annd five of the six major studios are on board. Only Warner Bros. continues to sit out. "No other format has gotten this much software support since DVD was launched eight years ago," notes analyst Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. This includes the Warner-initiated Mini-DVD format which had a very unsucessful test at Best Buy stores. Since PSP was launched, more than 1.2 million units have sold. 6 million to 8 million PSP machines will be in North American households in 12 months. Analysts say that although UMD will never be as big as DVD, which has more than 65 million households, the market could grow up to 30 million households. I wonder how long it will take the next generation of DVD to hit that mark. Again, this further proves how the next generation of video game systems may effect the future of home entertainment._thumbnail.jpg)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-16-2005 @ 4:19PM
Doug said...
Yeah, The Xbox 360's interface to the internet is pretty interesting. Not only do they have the extremely sophistocated Xbox Live feature, but they'll have an Amazon-like marketplace where you can buy and trade all kinds of cool stuff and a spectator feature that allows you to watch international game tournaments. This and "Gears of War" and I'm sold. I'll buy a PS3, no doubt... it looks absurdly powerful... but they haven't articulated their strengths well yet, in my opinion. So, yeah... television, gaming, movies, music downloads... all of it will funnel through the 360. Bring it on!!
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6-16-2005 @ 4:19PM
David said...
Please. This indicates only that the people that bought their new PSP, since they dropped a bundle on the unit itself, decided to pick up a couple movies while they were at it - just for the novelty of it. I'm sure some of them will continue to buy UMD movies - and I could (and probably will), of course, be totally proven wrong on this - but it wouldn't surprise me if the next wave of UMD movie discs took much longer to reach the 100,000 mark.
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6-16-2005 @ 4:19PM
Jay said...
UMD would really sell like hotcakes if it had cross-platform support. I'm not going to clunk down $25 for something I can only use on my 7-inch screen (and sans any special features). Everyone is talking about how versatile and scalable these new HD formats are; I'd like to see them put it to the test.
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