Judging by the headline over at 1up, you might be led to believe that 17 million UMD movies were sold since Sony released the PlayStation Portable, but you would be wrong: that number includes both 9 million UMDs for games, and another 8.2 million for (legally?) PSP-formatted movies. Sony’s still set their sights high, however, with an expectation of 130 million total UMDs sold in (or by the end of) 2008 (depending on which site you believe). A Sony rep stated that the company’s currently maxed-out manufacturing capacity of 200,000 Universal (er, proprietary) Media Discs per day will also be pushed to 500,000 discs per day (probably by the end of that same 2008 timeline).
The hardest number for me to believe, however, was the one claiming that UMD movies would be expected to make up more than 60 percent of all UMD sales, despite the fact that they’ve nearly reached 50 percent of sales already. So people really are buying as many movies for the little handheld with a big screen as they are games. I guess those GBA Video guys were on to something after all.
of course it's dumb. just like it's dumb for nintendo to sell you NES Mario on EVERY system--now sony wants you to buy multiple copies of the same movie.
Most of the folks I know with PSPs really aren't heavy gamers. and aren't really equipped (skills-wise) to convert their own movie files... it makes sense that movie sales are high. I was just talking to somebody yesturday who bought the PSP and a game for her boyfriend and all he does is watch movies on it.
you can get a portable DVD player for a lot less...
even one that plays NES roms...
Last edited by Reaperman@home on Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
the fact that sony realized that the majority their user base isn't equipped with the skills to convert a movie file, and filled that gap with a retail option is exactly why PSP will rule, and GPx2 (and other systems) will fail. one of these systems you have to know something to use, and that alienates large segments of the population.
the first person to prepackage SD cards with TV programs and feature-length mpeg4 movies will make tens of millions. (for the PDA/gizmondo/zodiac/gpx2/smartphone markets) heck, you could make them viewable on digital cameras... either sell them on SD rom in retail stores (like sony is doing with umd movies), or use a kiosk that loads standard SD cards with movies for a HUGE variety of different devices.
I give sony props for realizing that they had a market in this. it's pure profit.
edit: I like that idea... Add MP3's to your movie kiosk and you have tremendous earning potential if you drop that kiosk into a shopping mall and make it easy enough for a monkey to use. (look at the kodak/fuji printing kiosks to see what I mean)
"ooh, like OMG! I can like put movies on my cellphone and stuff. I'm smart!"
(like stealing candy from a baby)
…except the RIAA would hand you back your ass on a silver platter. See, the PSP doesn't do DRM and SD cards (and Memory Stick) can be read by many things. You start selling stuff you don't have the copyright to, you're gonna get sued about 10 times over. Even if you made a program to do that for you, you'd still get sued by all of the DRM people.
he means like an actual company, not a little business he runs. i think the rom idea is better than filling your own sd's, it would be harder to do piracy
Reaperman@home wrote:the fact that sony realized that the majority their user base isn't equipped with the skills to convert a movie file, and filled that gap with a retail option is exactly why PSP will rule
You realize that PSP is being beaten by the DS in every market, I fail to see how that is, "Ruling" Anyways, I don't care about movies, if I wanted to watch movies on the go, I'd buy a Portable DVD player. Personally, I'd purchase a PSP in a heart beat, if Sony didn't kill homebrew on it every upgrade.
