Sony Says UMD Is Here To Stay

PlayStation Portable senior marketing manager John Koller spoke with the Pocket Gamer site about the much-maligned UMD format. The disc used in the PSP for both games and movies, few stores carry UMD movies any more. Just the same, says Koller, Sony supports it 100%. From the interview: "'UMD possesses many strengths, from size to form factor to portability,' he says. The same can easily be said of the UMD's cartridge counterpart on Nintendo DS. However, ease of UMD manufacturing is seen as a winning benefit. 'Duplication of UMDs is much easier, cheaper than cartridges,' Koller adds. 'We've really optimized time and cost by going with a disc-based format.' On the topic of UMD weaknesses, Koller is candid: 'There's no question the biggest weakness is related to porting games from other platforms. Publishers are concerned about the size of UMD because they can't cram a DVD game on to it.'"

Comments

1000 per cent jump as a result of deep discount

[MSRedfox]

"Sales in Japan, however, have been astronomical - in autumn of last year, UMD movies underwent a 1000 per cent jump in the region as a result of deep discounts by retailers." Well, yeah. That's an easy way to get sales. My local Circuit City blew their discs out fast when they were discontinued and marked down to $2 each. Last I knew, most movie distributors other then Sony had stopped releasing UMD movie titles due to poor sales. Sony just needs to let the format die, everyone else has.

Re:1000 per cent jump as a result of deep discount

[SharpFang]

Except the marketspeak used in the cited sentence matches the situation perfectly. Deep discounts resulting in increase of sales, without citing the original sales which got increased, without writing about how (un)profitable the sale is after the deep discounts, without predictions about sustaining the sales level (is it just emptying the shelves of unwanted junk, or a promotion) etc.

Reminds me of a joke from soviet era. A The most famous runner from Poland was to compete against a soviet champion. It was a one on one race. The official message stated the results: "the Russian got the honourable second place, the Pole came in but-last."

Not Made Here syndrome.

[SharpFang]

Minidisk, Memory Stick, and now this. Sony seems to have its mind set on producing a medium that is more expensive than any of the competition, doesn't add anything significant feature-wise and is totally incompatibile with the rest of the world.
In one hand, this is kind of lock-in, buy ours, not the competitor's. In the other hand, the Memory Stick was a deciding factor in not picking a Sony when I was buying a camera...

Re:Not Made Here syndrome.

[ady1]

Floppy disks?

Re:Not Made Here syndrome.

[donaldm]

Actually the Minidisk was a very practical format when it first came out since it had a lower form factor and was much more robust than CD or tape cassette, unfortunately since it was competing against the cheaper CD's and cassettes it was not as popular. Actually Sony licensed the technology to numerous companies, but once MP3 players appeared this made the Minidisk even less attractive, of course the MP3 player also killed off the cassette player as well. For more information on the Minidisk see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc.

The Memory Stick is a Sony format and is also licensed to other manufacturers so you can get Memory Sticks from Sony and other flash card manufactures. The price difference between SD flash card and a Memory Stick of the same capacity can vary from 10% to 100% more expensive, however this depends on the manufacturer.

As for choosing a camera, all camera manufacturers require you to use either SD, Compact Flash, MMC, XD or Memory Stick although I have personally found the Memory Stick is more expensive. Still if you want a PSP you do need a Memory Stick and i suppose you could call that vendor lock-in, however the PS3 allows you to use SD, Memory Stick or Compact Flash.

Nearly all manufactured products have some vendor lock-in because this means more profit for them, however most manufacturers realise that vendor lock-in can backfire on them so they license their products to other manufacturers so that they still make a profit although not as much as they would like if they kept it in-house. An example of licensing is CD's and DVD's, if you buy these items you actually are contributing to Sony who is actually part of the CD and DVD consortium's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Forum#Founding_me mbers. So if you don't want anything to do with Sony then you should not buy CD's or DVD's.

Keeping on topic, the UMD like the Minidisk is also a practical format in that it is a cheap, small robust disk with a reasonable capacity (1.8GB) and is very suitable for the PSP and most likely restricted to it. It is debatable if it could replace the CD player (a few years too late) since MP3 payers are also dominating that market. Since you can get 2GB and 4GB Memory Sticks it is possible to put avi files (ripped from your "cough!" purchased DVD's) on them and play them on your PSP and you can even play these files via your PSP to your PS3 and the result can be quite impressive on a HDTV.

Re:Missionaccomplished?

[MSRedfox]

"I just don't understand why they even need to, are there any advantages that other formats don't (and wont) have?" Yes, it has one big advantage for Sony. They can collect fees on UMD discs. If another format is used, they don't get paid for it. It is all about them trying to push their proprietary format so they get extra income. It is the same reason they want Blu-ray to take off. Nothing is better then getting paid for simply controlling the underlying media format.

They needed to cut costs years ago.

[deniable]

Every time I saw UMD movies, they were more expensive than the DVD version. This probably hurt sales of the PSP as well.

It's typical Sony. Make your own format and charge extra for it. They never learn.

Re:They needed to cut costs years ago.

[SCPRedMage]

Hmm... do I buy the UMD version of the movie and watch it on just my PSP, or do I buy it on DVD, rip and convert it to play from a Memory Stick, using less battery power, and costing less to boot...

Tough decisions...

Sony supports it 100%

[suv4x4]

They forgot to mention that's quite insufficient. Stores don't support it. Content producers (except Sony) don't support it.

And not to mention, consumers don't support it. Who'd pay almost the full price of a movie just to watch a downscaled version on his psp.

Re:Missionaccomplished?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The comments could be viewed in a number of ways.

I think the UMD, being a format exclusively used by the PSP, is a fine format. Not necessarily better than the DS' game cards, but with more storage, i can't complain.

"Strength"

[vga_init]

UMD possesses many strengths, from size to form factor to portability,

That's not many strengths; that's one. It's SMALL. Also, this attribute is not necessarily a strength. It could have many downsides too.

Remember the MiniDisc?

[Opportunist]

Same deal. Actually, it was even heaps better than UMD. Great concept, way ahead of its time. A rewriteable, portable medium that could store heaps of data long before the advent of the DVD or the price landslide of the solid storage. Yet a desaster. Why?

The reasons are similar to UMD: Sony's attempt to corner the market, rely on vendor lock-in and a DRM system that made it unusable. It's a no-brainer that you cannot force the market to use your proprietary format that none but your own hardware can read. And that's what Sony is trying (again). There is only ONE SINGLE platform for UMD. The PSP. And, let's be honest here, PSP sales weren't that great to begin with. PSPs are also not really the primary platform for watching movies. Far from it. And I think it's safe to assume that you have to pay Sony if you want to release a movie in UMD format.

Could anyone, or everyone, with at least a hint of a background in business think of a reason why UMD fails?

Re:Remember the MiniDisc?

[Diabolus Advocatus]

Actually, Sony didn't try to

force the market to use your proprietary format that none but your own hardware can read with the minidisc. Many companies from Sharp to AIWA produced minidisc players, recorders and discs that were all cheaper than Sony's versions. In fact, I own one and still use it with a mic as a portable sound recorder and it does a damn good job. The minidisc failed because of the price and the poor selection of music available. I believe that the demise of the UMD is mainly down to the fact that if you want to watch movies on the go you can buy them on DVD, rip them and transfer to your mp4 (or similar) player. That way you still have the DVD that at SD resolution and will play on your TV, you can watch it on the go, and it cost you about three times less than the UMD.

Re:Remember the MiniDisc?

[bri2000]

Great concept, way ahead of its time

I used MD (and HiMD) for my portable music needs about 9 years for the period between the death of cassette and me finally succumbing and buying an iPod last year out of sheer frustration with Sony's arrogance. While I liked the format and owned four portable players a micro system with built in MD player which I had at work and even a rack size stand alone recorder/player and I really don't agree that it was ahead of its time. The original players were conceived more as a direct replacement for cassette than anything else. They did not integrate with computers at all and you had to record directly from your CD player in real time meaning that making a compilation disc was as time consuming as making a mix tape used to be (and you couldn't adjust recording levels to equalise volume over the disc without introducing unpleasant digital distortion) and maximum play time was 74 minutes. Notwithstanding that I preferred them to portable CD players, which were the only alternative at the time.

Sony did not introduce NetMD with its PC integration until 2002, sometime after HDD and solid state mp3 players had started to become popular and (I always felt) as a grudging and half-arsed response to them. Looking back now I can't believe I stuck with NetMD as long as I did, I guess it must be true what they say about vendor lock-in - I had spent a lot of time recording MDs and I didn't want to start again on a new format. NetMD offered little over regular MD (a couple of long play modes of which only LP2 was seriously usuable for music and the fact your music was now also stored on your PC) Amongst the numerous problems the NetMD software (orginally called OpenMGJukebox, later SonicStage) had were:

1. The fact it would only let you export a track to a maximum of 3 MDs. This was a blaket prohibition and, perhaps, the earliest example of Sony's draconian approach to DRM. This limitation became a real problem for me when I had a bag with most of my MDs in it stolen.

2. If you had to do a system restore it would break the DRM and you would not have to access your music library at all. There was supposed to be a tool which fixed this. I could never make it work for me. It was when this happened for the second time (and Sony support claimed that this wasn't a bug but a feature) that I decided to buy an iPod.

3. The NetMD could only read ATRAC format files meaning that any MP3s etc had to be converted. This resulted in loss of quality and would not work at all with WMA files (I think this may have finally been fixed recently).

HiMD was actually a big advance I thought - 1GB discs, the ability to record PCM - but it was too little too late. When it was released it sold for the same price as as an iPod and just couldn't compete, especially given the awful software. I probably didn't help that spare 1GB discs weren't available until months after the players were launched)

Re:Missionaccomplished?

[LordVader717]

The biggest fault is deciding to put a shrunk DVD drive into a handheld. Manufacturing may be easier for them, but the DS cartridges are selling a bajillion times more and there doesn't seem to be a problem keeping up there.

The problem with the PSP is that it tried too much to be as powerful as a home console. Most of it's games are therefore not seen as better than DS games, but as stripped down versions of home console games.

Re:Format choices.

[Technician]

In the other hand, the Memory Stick was a deciding factor in not picking a Sony when I was buying a camera...

Add to the list the format of the battery. My first digital camera was a SONY. Two lessons learned.. Interchangable parts are a must. Otherwise you are required to overstock seldom used items.

One memory card and one battery is OK for the occasional shot of the kid but useless when taking in an auto show, wedding and reception, parade, etc. Either I had a full memory with lots of useless CF cards nearby, or a dead battery with lots of NiMH and alkaline batteries nearby also useless.

I have standardised as much as possible. Everything uses either CF or SD cards and AA or AAA batteries. I have enough of both to get the job done. For a big job, the cards get pulled out of the MP3 player, the GPS and the hand held computer. A 2 week vacation to Hawaii did not mean running out of supplies. When I ran out of batteries at the cultral center, I broke open some alkaline batteries and kept shooting. I was not held hostage to a propritory battery format. It's nice that my flashlight and camera share batteries.

of course it's here to stay

[gEvil (beta)]

Is this really even a story? As long as they continue to make and sell the PSP, the UMD disc is going to be made, too (note, we're not talking about UMD movies). Were you guys expecting them to suddenly release a PSP that uses a different format and is totally incompatible with all previous games out there? Didn't think so. So why is this a surprise?

Re:Missionaccomplished?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Pressing a UMD is probably far far cheaper than even write once SD cards. UMDs can probably be pressed, like most optical media, for pennies.

Here to stay...

[LKM]

Yeah, UMD movies are here to stay. Stay on the shelves of the retailers, that is. There is no space on the market for a format that costs more than DVDs, has less content than DVDs, and can only be played on one single device that isn't selling particularly well.

Having said that, I will admit that I have actually bought about a dozen UMD movies. Many of the major retailers are or were getting rid of them, and it was possible to buy them for a few bucks. So I have a bunch of unwatched UMDs I can watch if I'm going on a longer train trip. The main issue with that is, of course, that watching UMDs drains the battery much faster than watching movies from the memory stick. On the other hand, they look better...

Re:What country?

[LKM]

What country lets its citizens do this?

Every country. Except yours.

Re:Missionaccomplished?

[gEvil (beta)]

You can now get 2GB MicroSD cards, which are absoloutely tiny

And how much did that 2GB MicroSD card cost when the PSP came out? Oh wait, they didn't make them at the time. You could get a 1GB MicroSD card for about a hundred bucks, though. Why didn't they just use those instead? Comparing what's available now to the materials available when the PSP was being developed/introduced indicates that you don't quite understand how this "flow of time" thing works.

universal media discs!

[syrinx]

Remember, they're universal! They can play in your PSP made by Sony, and also can play in...

um...

well, an entirely different PSP, also made by Sony!

Universal!

Whatever.

[supabeast!]

$500 is better than $600, but it will still buy me ten games for my Wii, or even more for my DS.

Of course, if they actually start releasing GOOD movies on Blu-Ray, instead of crappy back-catalog bombs, then I might actually buy one to watch movies. But as long as The Criterion Collection stays on DVD-ROM, no PS3 for me!

What price cut? The bottom line is still $500

[ProppaT]

You realize there was always a $500 PS3, right? The problem with this price cut is that Sony didn't lower their bottom line, they just dropped the price of 40gb of extra hard drive space $100 and offered a new $600 SKU. Sure, you ARE getting 40gb of extra hard drive now, but how much more does this cost Sony? $5-10? This is called marketing. You're not really getting a price cut as much as you're being subjected to a marketing tactic.