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The UMD and PSP Getting Off The Ground
1up is running a piece examining Hollywood's relationship with Sony's UMD format. From the article: "Two UMD movies sold 100,000 units within two months. By contrast, one of the earliest DVD releases, Air Force One, took nine to achieve the same goal. DVD and ticket sales are on the decline, Hollywood needs a new source of revenue while they pick up the pieces, and PSP's handheld UMD format is turning into the glowing solution." Relatedly, Next Generation is running an article taking a look at the increasing quality of original games coming out for Sony's handheld. From the article: "After an embarrassingly slow start, the PSP has begun to find its niche with developers; likewise, Sony's internal studios and publishing division have gotten really adventuresome lately, with big and little games, both in tested genres and genres those games serve to test."
...to proprietary media formats.
I'm using the term "proprietary" loosely, of course... but buy into any media format that's tied to one specific device, and it's a given that someday you're going to have a stack of media that you can't play and a much lighter bank account to go with it.
Arr, the format be from the deserts of Iraq, Arr!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
the UMD Wipeout/Stealth combo is not affected by this article, all is well with the world. And, if you listen closely, you can hear 8 tracks and Beta getting a setting ready at their table.
Anyone who has purchased one of these care to explain the reasoning? The PSP is cool, but I just dont understand why anyone would buy a movie that can only be watched on it, when DVD + laptop works perfectly well. The Spiderman 2 disc is neat to wow people with but i mean how many times can i watch the same movie on the same portable system? Especially since I got the system for gaming...
Why would people be *more* likely to buy an overpriced low-quality version of a movie that they can only watch on their PSP when they could just buy the DVD and watch it on their fantabulous home theater system?
Any high sales at the moment are probably solely due to novelty. Once the novelty wears off, sales will drop off (rather dramatically, I'm guessing). In any case, this isn't going to be a cash cow for Hollywood, as the studios will be less likely to sell a DVD for every UMD they sell of the same movie.
So the sequel is more graphically advanced but it's still unplayable?
Let's face it people the PSP has a serious problem with games, this is the same problem you laughed at the Game Cube about, but you defend it now? The problem is you don't have people who know how to make handhelds in charge of it.
Nintendo risked a bit with the 2 screens, but notice where they are? Notice they know how to use it. Nintendogs is genius. They tried something big, and it's worked. Sony can't have something like that, they don't have the capablities for it on this system.
It's the same with the Revolution, if Nintendo gets third party in and sees it's a great idea you'll see a shift in power. And they can likely do it. What they need to let out is numbers for the systems and get the dev kits out, I don't know if they have done either, but once that starts it could be something good. It's going to be hard, but let's be honest, if you think games are good now, your kidding yourself, all we are getting are games similar to what we've been seeing for the last 20 years. This might actually give us something different.
The problem is PSP should stand for PS Ports. They might have GTA Liberty City Stories but they need more than one unique game to hold this system together and they failed that test so far. The only game I want for the PSP is Lumines and maybe Liberty City Stories. Where as the DS definatly has the games, and the backwards compatibility too.
They should have allowed everyone to put their own apps on the system. Would Java have worked if they locked it down? Imagine if you can run anything on the PSP and enjoy programming for it? but of course Sony doesn't want freedom (remember they have a huge invested interest in RIAA.)
Ngage failed for the similar reason in the game department, but the PSP is competition for the DS which is good, but it's not going to beat it though. Nintendo is entrenched here where they wern't on the 64. They use the older archaic format for the Handhelds, but I've noticed it's the one that works the best. You can't damage a cartridge like you can easily scratch a disk. I've scratched many discs accidently, nothing horrible but I've done it, I've never ever damaged a cart, even when trying... And when your transporting this stuff, you're going to scratch it after a while.
The more we glorify their attempts at trying to make it live, the worse it will do when it crashes. UMD is a good idea, if they can make other players and get the cost down. I'm not going to pay twice the price (I get DVDs at places like walmart.. 15 bucks a piece on the day it gets released) just so it's portable. That's obscene.
"DVD and ticket sales are on the decline, Hollywood needs a new source of revenue while they pick up the pieces"
God I hate this little fact people like to bandy about. Tinsel town is not hurting in the slightest, here are yearly box office sales from the last half dozen or so years ( thanks to boxofficemojo.com ).
2004 9.4 billion
2003 9.1 billion
2002 9.1 billion
2001 8.4 billion
2000 7.6 billion
1999 7.4 billion
1998 6.9 billion
See... where I come from, when the number keeps going up and up, we dont call that shrinking... grrr.
I swear, they do. I went to my stepbrothers Basic Graduation, and every other soldier was buying a damn PSP. He bought one and 3 games and 2 movies. Ghost Busters, and the first 10 episodes of Ren and Stimpy. I asked my stepbro why he wanted a PSP, he said to watch the movies AND play the games, I asked why didnt he get a DS and a seperate movie player. He said the DS didnt play movies, and he only wanted one thing he had to take care of and that it was better that it was small. That way he could use it on downtime, instad of a DVD player.
Yay, I have a sig.
"Two UMD movies sold 100,000 units within two months. By contrast, one of the earliest DVD releases, Air Force One, took nine to achieve the same goal."
This comparison is not relevant.
First, the DVD player was a single-function appliance, and had to be adopted before people would buy one. The PSP was released as a game platform, so it was adopted by many more people.
Second, the DVD competed with a tech that already had very deep market saturation -- videocassettes. Early adopters had already invested in laser-discs and been burned. Adoption of DVD players was slower due to these factors. The PSP, on the other hand, competes (in re: movies) with portable DVD players, which do not have as deep market saturation.
"DVD and ticket sales are on the decline, Hollywood needs a new source of revenue while they pick up the pieces, and PSP's handheld UMD format is turning into the glowing solution"
Except of course, that the UMD format is not a new source of revenue. It is a new distribution method for an old source of revenue -- movie titles for portable video players.
The reason that UMD-format sales of selected movies have been high? Because the titles released are targeted to the same market as the PSP. Why doesn't the article reference the top-selling DVDs sold within the first few months of sale?
The reason people pay high prices for UMD-format movies? Because it beats paying $400 for a portable DVD player that (1) serves no other function and (2) takes up even more space in the pocketbook/bookbag/tote/man-purse.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I have a PSP, and UMD movies are nothing more than a fad. Contrary to the Hollywood executives' beliefs, I don't exist to line their pockets every time they decide they need to have me re-buy my movie library on a different format.
People can bring their PSPs into the movie and watch a UMD when they get bored!
Nintendo tried the legal bullying route against N64 emulators before, e.g., against UltraHLE.
Their going the "just that it was theft of their stuff, and breaking the DMCA, both" is still, well, precisely the point. That an emulator containing exactly 0 (ZERO) lines of Nintendo code is somehow theft of Nintendo's property, isn't just laughable, but just the kind of playing nasty that I was talking about. Using the DMCA to that end, doubly so.
"Their old contracts are old for a reason, and let's admit that maybe it was smarter that way, I prefer 1 good game, rather then an ok game and 2 ports (3 if you count the computer)"
You don't get it, kid. I'm not talking that you couldn't port your current game to other systems. I'm talking that you had to sell yourself into serfdom to Nintendo, and never ever be allowed to publish any _other_ game for a non-Nintendo platform. Think non-compete for life.
After that point you'd be basically at Nintendo's mercy. If they didn't want to publish your games any more, you couldn't just say "fuck it, then I'll try making my next game for the PC instead." You'd just go bankrupt. You were officially their bitch from that point, and they knew it. You _had_ to do what Nintendo wanted, and at whatever price Nintendo felt like paying, or go bankrupt.
_That_ nasty. The old Nintendo was a nastier monopolist than MS at it's nastiest hour.
Mind you, those contracts got overruled in courts, but that they even tried that kind of "sign yourself into serfdom for life" stunt, says something.
Also let me say: having one game ported on more systems, doesn't make it be suddenly a worse game, which you seem to imply. Au contraire, it gives it more potential market, hence it can be made with a bigger budget. Between selling 100,000 copies on one platform and selling 200,000 copies across 3 platforms, guess which gives you more funds to hire extra artists or include more levels? Right.
So any way you want to look at it, that stuff didn't benefit either the consumer or the developpers in any form or shape. It was self-serving stuff that benefited exactly one entity: Nintendo itself.
Now I can understand that they're in it to make money, and act primarily in their own interest, and all. Fair enough. But claiming that it benefitted _anyone_ but themselves (e.g., that the consumers too got better games out of it) is pretty funny.
"Gamecube's falling is the same as the PSP's current predicament."
Well, yes, any console lives or dies by the number and mass appeal of the games it has. No arguments there. The difference is that the Gamecube has already failed, while the PSP is just starting. Will it fail too? Maybe. Maybe not. It's far too early to tell.
So far it seems to be doing great at least in Europe. Admittedly, that's also because Nintendo pretty much gave up on the European market. You can count the number of DS games released here on your fingers, and it's not even the best ones. And the DS sales reflect that: they've sold in really pitiful numbers. So at least here the PSP is at the moment very much the _only_ choice.
I can assume that that'll go a long way to make it a valid market. Europe is a games market only slightly smaller than the USA market, and about twice the Japan market. Dominating this market can go a long way to make it worth writing games for it.
But again, I wouldn't know which way it'll really go from here. We shall see. Proclaiming it either a victor or a failure at this point is just silly.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My current setup uses PSPWare for Mac. I typically rip an episode of the Office or Six Feet Under from DVD each night to watch on the streetcar in the morning. Also with this sync goes a daily bookmarks file for the browser, a random selection of 50 songs from iTunes, whatever my last roll of photos taken was, and a podcast or two. Syncins a PSP only takes a few minutes even with this large amount of data (go USB2!). Its made a gigantic difference in my commute; sometimes you wanna play BurnOut, sometimes you just want to read, or watch something, or listen to music. I don't have to decide before I walk out the door which device to take - that is the appeal.
I understand the argument from the DS fans but these features are killer apps for me.
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