Sony's own proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) is about to follow the way of Betamax...into oblivion. With sales falling below expectations, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and Image Entertainment all have stopped distributing movies on UMD. 20th Century Fox Buena Vista and even Sony Pictures itself have cut back on new releases. And now Wal-Mart is rumored to be getting out of the UMD business entirely.
Does this surprise you? It sure surprised me this morning when I read this news. Now, what surprised me was not that UMD was being phased out. No, what surprised your roving correspondent was that I have never even heard of UMD. And I didn't know that movies were ever released in this format. I know I shouldn't admit my ignorance here, being a technology reporter with a loyal following of readers. But I am betting that most of you, dear readers, have never heard of it either.
Upon further investigation, I found that UMD is a special format that works only in Sony Playstation Portable gaming device. That's the portable handheld gaming machine you see some of our younger generation using while walking around and chewing gum at the same time.
Seems that while sales of the PlayStation Portable have been impressive, sales of UMD movies have been anemic or worse. No wonder then that Hollywood was so quick to sour on them.
"We are on hiatus with UMD," a Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment exec told the Hollywood Reporter. "Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them."
Another high ranking executive at Universal Studios Home Entertainment was even more blunt. "It's awful," he said. "Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb...like Blu-ray." (Did you catch that one? Is another studio about to defect from Blu-ray? Check my blog on 3/16/06)
The UMD failure is not a shock to those who know about these things. Why would anyone pay upward of $25 for a movie on a proprietary format that can't be viewed on a television, when they could buy a DVD of the same movie for significantly less to watch it on a regular TV ...or rip it to a Memory Stick with a piece of freeware? If Sony had been thinking clearly, it would have slapped an S-video jack on the PSP that would allow the gadget to connect to TV sets for big-screen viewing and priced UMD media somewhere between $5 and $10. But what do we know?
Actually, I like to think of this as another payback to Sony for putting hidden rootkit hacking software on some of their music CD's.
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