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Media Sony Entertainment Games

UMD Sales Top 100K 95

Posted by Zonk from the bully-for-them dept.
GamesIndustry.biz has the news that Sony has sold more than 100,000 units of UMD movies to date. This does not include the Spider-Man 2 discs that were included with the PSP package in the U.S. From the article: "Sony's film canon is broadening all the time, the executive said, with releases aimed at demographics outside the traditional 18-25 year-old male gamer demographic expected soon - including releases targeted at women, and cartoons."
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UMD Sales Top 100K More

UMD Sales Top 100K

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  • Movies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by turtled ( 845180 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:29PM (#12884311)
    It would be nice for PSP to have video out so you can watch these movies on a larger screen, shared with people. I don't see spending $20 for the DVD, then $20 to have a single person version. Heh, UNIVERSAL Media Disc.

    • Re:Movies (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Drakino ( 10965 )
      Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen, while DVDs are 720x480. DVDs are already noticibially lower quality then true HD content on a 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/p) display.

      Universal means it can hold music, or video, or game data according to Sony. It could be an odd translation issue, but it does lead to some highly ironic things.

      At least Best Buy is somewhat smart. UMD movies on their shelves were priced at $30 initially. They just re

      • Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)

        by turtled ( 845180 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:56PM (#12884598)
        What I don't understand is why they were $30 in the first place, and why they are $20 now. They should be less than $10 for the quality of video, lack of extras, and viewable only on a small screen. If the PS3 has UMD reader, it will still be crappy video on a TV, after touting it's dual HD display output capabiliy.
      • Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen, while DVDs are 720x480. DVDs are already noticibially lower quality then true HD content on a 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/p) display.
        Uh.. I could be wrong but isn't a normal TV signal 320x240? I don't think the resolution is the biggest deal it's more an issue of how well the source video is encoded. If the encode is done well I would assume playing a UMD on a larger TV wouldn't be so horrible.

        With th
        • NTSC its about 648x486 (not sure about the exact numbers) with a pixel apect ratio of .9. Modifiying that to a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0 makes the resoultion 720x486.

          Now TV signals are also interlaced. Depending what the source footage was, the feilds may be slightly off from one another. In a digital progressive format, this looks ugly. So most people do a proportional scale to 320x240 for tv content.

      • Re:Movies (Score:2, Interesting)

        by TechniMyoko ( 670009 )
        Actually UMD video is recorded at a resolution higher than PSPs LCD screen
      • "Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen"

        It wouldn't be 'hideous', just not as good as DVD. It's still better than VHS.

        You have to consider that this is meant to be a portable media. If I still had my previous job where I'd travel for a week or two at a time, I wouldn't mind the loss in quality considering how much smaller the player AND the media is. It's a LOT easier to carry around a PSP + a few discs than it is to carry a portable DVD player

        • It's a LOT easier to carry around a PSP + a few discs than it is to carry a portable DVD player and some DVDs.

          Not if the title you want isn't available on UMD at any price short of billions of dollars to hostile-takeover the studio that made the film in order to license it to Sony. Specifically, where are the G-rated titles?

    • Maybe somebody who understands these things better than I do can chime in, but I don't think you would want to watch a UMD on a full size TV.

      The PSP screen is about one third the resolution of a DVD. I think that means that a UMD only needs to hold one third of the data that a DVD does, which is how they are able to get a whole movie on such a small disk.

      I think that a UMD movie on a full size TV would have worse resolution than VHS.

      • I think that a UMD movie on a full size TV would have worse resolution than VHS.

        VHS: 320x480i, with lots of noise, and because it's interlaced, it has to be vertically filtered so that near-horizontal lines don't flicker, giving an effective resolution of 320x240 similar to that of VCD.

        UMD video: 480x272p. It wouldn't look too objectionable when scaled up to 640x360 for TV playback, but at this early stage of the PSP's life cycle, Sony doesn't want to pay extra to put a Macrovision video copy prevent

    • Hopefully ripping a CD into mp4 will get faster and easier. Like ripping songs off a CD into mp3 format to put on a portable player.

  • Questionable demographic... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:29PM (#12884320)


    From TFA:


    "Sony's film canon is broadening all the time, the executive said, with releases aimed at demographics outside the traditional 18-25 year-old male gamer demographic expected soon - including releases targeted at women, and cartoons."

    Women, I can see...but I don't think Sony will be selling too many releases to cartoons... ^_^

  • Irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:33PM (#12884371) Homepage Journal
    ... is anyone else just choking to death on the irony of the name 'universal media disc' ... when it's proprietary?

    Alanis Morissette would be proud!
  • including releases targeted at women, and cartoons.

    What kind of movies do cartoons like to watch?

  • Does this seem like a big failure to anyone else? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @03:43PM (#12884479)
    According to this article [about.com] the PSP sold 500,000 units in the first 2 days. I'm sure it's gone on to sell millions of units by now.

    This means that only around 5% or so of the customer base is actually buying UMD movies (and that's assuming that each person only bought one movie). Doesn't this normally constitute a huge failure? Yet the Sony PR company will probably use this to proclaim the sucess of the PSP and UMD.

    The results aren't surprising to me considering the serious limitations of the format: same price as a DVD for lower quality and the inablity to be used on anything else but a PSP. Sure it's a nice feature, but it would seem as though a majority of the people really don't care.

    Although it would be a lot harder from a technical standpoint, why not create some extra hardware that would allow the PSP to play DVDs? Given Sony's history of building a console and then adding in the neat features later (PS2 HD, Network Card, Multi-tap) they could've made even more money selling people the extra hardware. To me, UMD movies just never made much sense from any point of view.

    • Keep in mind, the first batch of movies they had out wasn't exactly varied or sizable. Movies are only now really being released for the format (hell, I even saw UMD versions on the new release rack at Best Buy a week ago).

      They do make sense, from the standpoint of someone who doesn't want to buy another $300+ device to play DVDs then haul all that around as well, when travelling. Easier to have one device like the PSP to do it all.
      • Portable DVD players aren't exactly $300 plus bucks. I know, I know, depending on which one you get the price will go up. Just looking at best buy real quick shows that this off brand Insignia(TM) 7" 16:9 Widescreen Portable DVD Player costs $129. That's cheap. Cheap and it plays your DVDs from home...the ones you already own AND you don't have to purchase the movie twice. You can also hook it to your TV to watch the same movies and share with everyone. It supports DVD-Video, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD, C

    • big failure? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cgenman ( 325138 )
      I think everyone expected legal movie playback on a proprietary PSP only disk that cost more than the available DVD to be a complete red herring. It was just a lure to get suckers to buy into the portable gaming machine, and was never supposed to sell at all. That they sold more than 0 movies is a surprise. That they found 100,000 suckers is a triumph.

    • I am not going to argue with your logic. I think it is sound.
      But the way I see it is like this.
      I expected them to sell far, far less movies then they did.
      Since they are selling a lot more movies then I expected I am forced to call it a sucess.

      However.....
      consider for a second that these movies are much less costly then the games. I think there is a risk that the people that are buying these movies are buying them with the PSP purchase (or very shortly thereafter) because they were only able to afford one
    • I said as much [slashdot.org] in a post I suppose I should have placed in this thread...

      But what really struct me was the title of TFA. 25 Movies is all that they expect to have on the format for the EU launch ?!? That's pathetic. Sony controls a lot of movies, and the fact that they don't have them on UMD speaks volumes.

  • I still say the best strategy for getting these out to the market is to offer DVDs that include a UMD in the case. I'd be willing to pay for dual packs like this if they cost an extra five bucks or something. That way I'd have my DVD to watch at home, and the UMD for when I'm travelling or something.

    So far I love the fact that I paid $300 CAN and I get a video game system that does photos, encoded movies, music, AND is a portable movie player. It's a really great deal.

    • Re:DVD+UMD (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )
      I agree. I'm pretty sure I saw something like that somewhere. It was one the DVD box that it included the PSP version. I think it only cost an extra $10 (US) or less. That I would be willing to buy.

      But why should I buy a movie for $20 (and that is generously low for some movies) and they buy it again for... $20 so I can watch it on the go?

      I'm not big on buying movies in the first place, but I think most people would see that as a rip-off.

      How about $15 dollar rebate if you can prove you own the DVD vers

    • Yeah, shame you can't play a freaking good GAME on it though isn't it?

      C'mon, you can shell out big bucks for a mem card to have 1 movie at a time, that's awesome and well worth 300 CAN! (even though we all know Can money isn't real)

      I love games, and portables, however the PSP has no appeal at all to me and I'm square in the demographic, little to no solid games (besides "lite" versions and sequels of PS2 titles), little usefulness for photo's/movies/connectivity, and my money will never be spent on a UMD,
    • I wouldn't say it's a great deal.

      Nobody will use the PSP to display photos. That's a dumb feature. It sounds cool, but you won't use it. I don't care what you say. You just won't fucking use that feature. Once or twice to check it out doesn't count.

      MP3's.. Hmm another feature you won't use, why?
      It's $80 bucks for a 512mb cart and $150 for a 1 gig cart. For $120 you can buy the 512mb Philips GoGear SA178 [engadget.com] That's only $30 more than a 512mb cart and it's MUCH MUCH smaller than the PSP. You can actually cary i
  • (From the /. story here [slashdot.org].)

    Still, 100,000 is a pretty low number. Especially for pron sales.
  • If you want my money for UMD media, then allow me to rip/burn movies onto it that I already own. No way in hell I'm going to purchases shittier, more expensive versions of movies when I could have them in the DVD format with all the extras for less.

    100,000 is nothing. It's the novelty factor, is all.
  • Cmon RIAA and MPAA, save this company from MASSIVE LOSSES...oh wait, they keep increasing revenue and crushing independents? Damn.

  • 100,000 sounds like a lot but ... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    100,000 units is almost irrelevant if you actually analyze the numbers. The PSP has sold (to end users) more than 5 million units world wide(I don't know the exact number though); now if you look at the numbers this means that less than 2% of PSP users have bought a movie for it. Now if you assume that a large portion of people who have bought 1 UMD movie will have bought 2 or more it means that less than 1% of PSP users have bought a movie.

    I don't know about you, but if I was a movie studio I wouldn't be
    • Not only that 100,000 refers to all movies, not a single specific movie. So that means each movie has only sold a few thousand. That isn't much at all. If you were a studio would you consider releasing your movie in a format that might only get 10,000 sales?
  • Cartoons are woefully overlooked demographic.
  • Given the number of PSPs sold 100,000+ is a believable number.

    One statistic that needs to be looked at is out of the 100,000+ movies sold how many people bought more than one movie. I'd bet not many.

    It's a novelty at best. I own a PSP and wouldn't even think of buying a movie for it.

    It's easier to buy a portable DVD player. Bigger screen and your movies will work in other players.
  • UMD was a horrible idea.
    I was surprised when sales topped 100, so aside from this amazing me, it also made me realize how gullible people are. Why the hell are people buying these things?
  • Here's my theory: Sony doesn't care a bit about whether or not consumers embrace UMD movies (well, sure they'd PREFER that, but they're not counting on it.) The UMD movie scam is mainly being used to squeeze competitors off the rack space at Target, Wal-Mart, etc. The Uneducated Consumer walks by the huge PSP selection - not realizing half of them are crappy featureless movies - and the fledgling DS selection looks even worse. Microsoft should do this with the 360.. start packaging perfectly normal DVDs as

    • The Uneducated Consumer walks by the huge PSP selection - not realizing half of them are crappy featureless movies - and the fledgling DS selection looks even worse.

      How big is the GBA section again? The Nintendo DS is advertised as being able to play 99 percent of GBA games (except a couple pre-SP tilt-sensor games, pre-SP camera accessories, the e-reader, and games that require multiplayer play to complete, such as Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past). It can already play lots of 45-min

  • Seriously, they don't expect to have more than 25 titles available when it releases in Europe? How many are available now?

    How is this not a failure? Why wouldn't Sony, which has a large number of movies under it's control, release more titles on UMD... unless, of course, they understand that the market for them just isn't there ?

    Actually, aren't there supposed to be something like a couple million PSPs out there now? If they've sold 100,000 UMDs... I guess that's not a lot, then, is it ?

  • Here's the real numbers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iamghetto ( 450099 ) on Wednesday June 22, 2005 @05:56PM (#12885486) Homepage
    The wording on the post is misleading and or perhaps the article is wrong. I was just looking into UMD sales figures the other day and Resident Evil 2 & House of Flying Daggers have -EACH- sold over 100,000 copies themselves.

    I'm not sure about the total numbers, but the news is that two titles have reached the 100,000 mark after 5 months or so on the market. Air Force One with the first DVD to sell 100,000 units, and that took -9 months-.

    On a somewhat related note...

    I believe this illustrates how Blu-Ray included with the PS3 will defeat HD-DVD. No one in their right mind would buy a "UMD player" but by virtue of it being included with the PSP, the sales are relatively soaring. All the studios (except Warner Bros) have abandoned the Warner Bros. mini-DVD in favor of the UMD, and I think the same will happen with Blu-Ray/PS3 v. HD-DVD. Blu-Ray will get fast and massive market penetration riding the coat tails of the PS3, while HD-DVD has to fend for itself solely on its own merits.
    • It worked with the PS2 in getting DVD sales pumped up in Japan and was a neat feature in the US... BUT...

      That only worked with an open format. Yes, it will get penetration into the marketplace, but without full content from the other movie studios (who happen to be backing the HD-DVD format) it's destined to fail. If 20% of the movies are on BluRay and the other 80% are on HD-DVD, I'm going with content everytime, even if the other format is better.

      Sony needs to back up the hardware with movies and cont
      • BluRay is as open as DVD or HD-DVD; the question is whether the other 80% are going to continue pushing HD-DVD when (say) 20% of homes have BluRay thanks to the PS3, and 2% have HD-DVD.

        If consumers decide to stick with DVD players until the HD disk war is over, BluRay is going to win; it'll get itself into houses via the PS3, and only BluRay content producers will see any ROI. It's only if consumers decide they want HD now that HD-DVD has a chance against BluRay.

  • Please don't send Sony the message that we are willing to accept overpriced
    and arbitrarily limited media products.
    No video-out, lower resolution than DVD, cost more, LAME.
    • And how is this different from putting mp3s on a portable mp3 player? yes you have an audio out obviously, but maybe some people don't like lugging a laptop around with them to listen to music or watch a movie.
  • How are they doing their math? Is this 100,000 units sold to resellers, or 100,000 movies sold to PSP owners?
  • .. a PSP and a few UMD movies. My wife likes watching the movies before bed. Since our schedules are skewed a bit I can sleep while she watches and listens via headphones.

    The problem is that new releases are $22 a piece, and since I like to watch movies at home more than at a theatre I know the difference between a DVD and a UMD. If Sony would their new releases down to even $15 per UMD with older releases at $10 or less they would easily surpass a million UMD sales by now. I'll be damned if I'm going
    • On copying them to a memstick, you should know that a 2.5 hr movie at 30fps at the highest resolution that the PSP will support from a memstick (not the resolution of the screen, that's reserved for UMD movies only bleh.) will take about 840mb.

      I can stan anime at half framerate, that's 420mb. Watched all of Cowboy Bebop this way in pieces over the course of a couple days where I was away from home and bored. I won't pay 150 dollars for a 1gb memstick.

      I sold my PSP on ebay recently because it's not worth
      • First of all, I've seen a movie ripped from DVD on a 512 stick and, although I don't know at what resolution, it looked fine. I have problem with your assessment of the PSP:

        1. Homebrew
        To be honest, why would a game system support homebrew and how many people are really going to run homebrew? Love how /. makes this seem like a feature that John Q. Public gives a shit about. I don't care, and only a tiny minority does. The only reason homebrew works on any systems is through hacks anyways.

        2. No good

    • My wife likes watching the movies before bed. Since our schedules are skewed a bit I can sleep while she watches and listens via headphones.

      That works just as well with a 150 USD portable DVD player.

      If I was smart I would buy a 512mb memory stick and transfer movies to it instead.

      Where would you get these movies? Given the price range you quoted ($22 for a new release DVD), I'm guessing that you live in the United States, not any other country that .calls its unit of money a dollar. Doesn't the DM

      • Doesn't the DMCA (as interpreted in court) prohibit U.S. residents from ripping and format-shifting DVD videos encoded with CSS, which includes well over 90 percent of commercial DVD video releases?

        US residents don't care. Actually, I'm not even sure if that is illegal, but if it is, I can't see anyone caring. It's not like the feds are going to brake down your door and arrest you as you transfer your movies to memory card. Well, not yet anyways.
      • Like another poster said, I just don't care. I'm not stealing anything - I am using the data that a rightly paid for and moving it to some other media. I have no ethical problem with this since I'm not selling it or putting it out on a torrent. I'm watching it and then deleting it. We do have a little bit of privacy in this country (yes, the USA) and the FBI doesn't care either as long as it's not costing anyone money.

        Ripping a DVD and using the data for personal use doesn't result in sales lost by the
  • Who is buying these things! Because I am not.
  • Well, there is now no question that we have evidence and information that Mr. Kutaragi, the president of Sony, has UMDs, biological and chemical particularly.

    Mr. Kutaragi and his sons must leave Japan within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.

  • I don't think I would ever buy a UMD movie, even though I own a PSP, and end up on long road trips regularily. I just don't see the value in spending full price on a movie locked into a single format for a small device. I currently use PSP Video 9, and encode various films or shorts and save them on my 1GB memory stick.

    I could however seeing myself spend between $2-$5CDN extra on a DVD to get both formats included in the box (since we are after all paying for the movie, not the media.... right?). Or, even

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