It appears that sales of movies on Sony’s UMD (Universal Media Disk) format are falling short of expectations, causing a number of studios to scale back their movie releases for the PlayStation Portable. The one bright spot is comedies (Napoleon Dynamite is the best seller so far) that appeal to the core young male gamers.
Many retailers report that the overall impact of the format has still been nominal and are scaling back the amount of shelf space they provide for the UMD format.
Sony is planning to start selling movies using its Connect digital media store, letting users download the movies to their PSPs. Sony is also apparently working on a new adapter that would let people watch PSP movies on a television.
Has anyone at Sony considered that a format that is tied to a single device is not going to be popular with customers? Proprietary formats have certainly convinced me to stay away from Sony products.
Source: Engadget