UMD Sales Top 100K

GamesIndustry.biz has the news that Sony has sold more than 100,000 units of UMD movies to date. This does not include the Spider-Man 2 discs that were included with the PSP package in the U.S. From the article: "Sony's film canon is broadening all the time, the executive said, with releases aimed at demographics outside the traditional 18-25 year-old male gamer demographic expected soon - including releases targeted at women, and cartoons."

Comments

Movies

[turtled]

It would be nice for PSP to have video out so you can watch these movies on a larger screen, shared with people. I don't see spending $20 for the DVD, then $20 to have a single person version. Heh, UNIVERSAL Media Disc.

Re:Movies

[Drakino]

Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen, while DVDs are 720x480. DVDs are already noticibially lower quality then true HD content on a 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/p) display.

Universal means it can hold music, or video, or game data according to Sony. It could be an odd translation issue, but it does lead to some highly ironic things.

At least Best Buy is somewhat smart. UMD movies on their shelves were priced at $30 initially. They just recently dropped them to $20. I still won't buy one, and will instead cheer on the firmware hackers and hope one of them enables 480x272 and H.264 off the memory stick. Right now the memory stick is limited to 320x240 and Mpeg4. This is why UMD media looks so much better on a PSP, all due to a firmware limitation and no technical reason.

Re:Movies

[turtled]

What I don't understand is why they were $30 in the first place, and why they are $20 now. They should be less than $10 for the quality of video, lack of extras, and viewable only on a small screen. If the PS3 has UMD reader, it will still be crappy video on a TV, after touting it's dual HD display output capabiliy.

Re:Movies

[TechniMyoko]

Actually UMD video is recorded at a resolution higher than PSPs LCD screen

Questionable demographic...

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

"Sony's film canon is broadening all the time, the executive said, with releases aimed at demographics outside the traditional 18-25 year-old male gamer demographic expected soon - including releases targeted at women, and cartoons."

Women, I can see...but I don't think Sony will be selling too many releases to cartoons... ^_^

Irony

[mister_llah]

... is anyone else just choking to death on the irony of the name 'universal media disc' ... when it's proprietary?

Alanis Morissette would be proud!

Re:Irony

[Ataeagina]

Why would she? She has no idea what the word ironic really means.

Does this seem like a big failure to anyone else?

[alvinrod]

According to this article the PSP sold 500,000 units in the first 2 days. I'm sure it's gone on to sell millions of units by now.

This means that only around 5% or so of the customer base is actually buying UMD movies (and that's assuming that each person only bought one movie). Doesn't this normally constitute a huge failure? Yet the Sony PR company will probably use this to proclaim the sucess of the PSP and UMD.

The results aren't surprising to me considering the serious limitations of the format: same price as a DVD for lower quality and the inablity to be used on anything else but a PSP. Sure it's a nice feature, but it would seem as though a majority of the people really don't care.

Although it would be a lot harder from a technical standpoint, why not create some extra hardware that would allow the PSP to play DVDs? Given Sony's history of building a console and then adding in the neat features later (PS2 HD, Network Card, Multi-tap) they could've made even more money selling people the extra hardware. To me, UMD movies just never made much sense from any point of view.

Re:Obvious

[zeath]

I had the same thought as the grandparent and didn't even notice it until I read your comment. I usually ignore commas when reading anything online since they are so often misused and haphazardly utilized.

Re:Does this seem like a big failure to anyone els

[pnice]

Portable DVD players aren't exactly $300 plus bucks. I know, I know, depending on which one you get the price will go up. Just looking at best buy real quick shows that this off brand Insignia(TM) 7" 16:9 Widescreen Portable DVD Player costs $129. That's cheap. Cheap and it plays your DVDs from home...the ones you already own AND you don't have to purchase the movie twice. You can also hook it to your TV to watch the same movies and share with everyone. It supports DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 and JPEG formats, has dolby digital, Composite video and stereo audio outputs and a remote and car adapter.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7006 704&type=product&id=1099392260799

Re:DVD+UMD

[MBCook]

I agree. I'm pretty sure I saw something like that somewhere. It was one the DVD box that it included the PSP version. I think it only cost an extra $10 (US) or less. That I would be willing to buy.

But why should I buy a movie for $20 (and that is generously low for some movies) and they buy it again for... $20 so I can watch it on the go?

I'm not big on buying movies in the first place, but I think most people would see that as a rip-off.

How about $15 dollar rebate if you can prove you own the DVD version or something like that?

Re:Obvious

[antifoidulus]

I, really do, beg to, differ, I think, that online, grammer; is inpeccable? What? (internet) are, you reading!

Re:Obvious

[zeath]

Jerk

Here's the real numbers

[iamghetto]

The wording on the post is misleading and or perhaps the article is wrong. I was just looking into UMD sales figures the other day and Resident Evil 2 & House of Flying Daggers have -EACH- sold over 100,000 copies themselves.

I'm not sure about the total numbers, but the news is that two titles have reached the 100,000 mark after 5 months or so on the market. Air Force One with the first DVD to sell 100,000 units, and that took -9 months-.

On a somewhat related note...

I believe this illustrates how Blu-Ray included with the PS3 will defeat HD-DVD. No one in their right mind would buy a "UMD player" but by virtue of it being included with the PSP, the sales are relatively soaring. All the studios (except Warner Bros) have abandoned the Warner Bros. mini-DVD in favor of the UMD, and I think the same will happen with Blu-Ray/PS3 v. HD-DVD. Blu-Ray will get fast and massive market penetration riding the coat tails of the PS3, while HD-DVD has to fend for itself solely on its own merits.

big failure?

[cgenman]

I think everyone expected legal movie playback on a proprietary PSP only disk that cost more than the available DVD to be a complete red herring. It was just a lure to get suckers to buy into the portable gaming machine, and was never supposed to sell at all. That they sold more than 0 movies is a surprise. That they found 100,000 suckers is a triumph.