First UMD Movie/Game Combo

Gamespot is reporting that, for the first time, Sony is selling a combo UMD movie/game disc. For about $40 you get three levels of Wipeout: Pure and the craptacular film "Stealth", which didn't even manage a 30% recoup on the film's budget. From the article: "On November 15, Sony will release the military sci-fi film Stealth, which slipped under most summer moviegoers' radar, on UMD. The portable version of the $130-million-budget, $31-million-grossing film will come with the first three levels of the best-selling PSP racing game Wipeout Pure. It will also feature a "Stealth" track not found in the regular version of the game, which will let players race as the advanced fighter jet from Stealth."

Comments

Re:Even the trailers looked like shit

[isd_glory]

It isnt "hidden," its just part of downloadable content mechanism. Though, to make it work, you need to find a way to redirect DNS queries for the WipeoutPure site to google or whatever.

Considering you have to set up the DNS redirect, press a lot of buttons, and generally wait a while before the browser is ready, it's a neat proof-of-concept trick; though, it is far from being practical.

Some info on the movie

[Saiyine]

Some data on the movie, from imdb:

User rating: 4'5 out of 10, with 605 people giving it the lowest score avaliable.

Budget $130M, gross $31M, confirming the blurb.

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I'm willing to bet

[SetupWeasel]

That Sony will burying these UMDs next to those E.T. cartridges and Jar Jar Binks figurines.

Re:Reminds me of...

[PaganRitual]

The Star Wars special edition DVD set thing also did this with Battlefront.

In the absence of a working downgrader..

[Inoshiro]

I'd say watch out. AFAIK, newer games are starting to require a firmware update. GTA: Liberty City Stories will be requiring it. I would expect that all the future UMD games will have them built in.

The Sony updater is designed to update if the version is >= to the current one, so they'd have no problem putting forced updaters on discs and forgetting about it.

My answer is simple: I do not buy UMD games. I bought my PSP used with a memory card because I wanted to run homebrew on it anyways. The actual games for the PSP have nothing I want.

Same way I got a DS for 100$.

[Inoshiro]

I bought it used from someone. Most video game stores don't offer much to people, because they need to protect their margins. For example, EB will give you 175$ for a PSP of store credit; they then sell it for 229$ ish and pocket the 55$ for store profits and in case you trade in garbage.

I was able to do the same thing with textbooks to avoid having to pay out my ass; I bought a complete set of my chem text, student solutions manual, and study guide for 60$ (MSRP: 200$ new) because I offered a bit more than the cash for books lady (who offers 50% of new, if everything's in perfect condition, and won't buy a lot of stuff like the study guide and solutions manual).

Lots of people want to get rid of stuff, and are willing to part with it for not very much money. Take the time to scout where this stuff happens and go for it. EB gives 75$ for a Nintendo DS system. I bet you could beat that if you want to!

I will warn you; my DS is scratched on the case, and my PSP is also scuffed a bit (nothing on the screen, but it's not the same as a new one).