What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, Igniq was reporting on tons of new movie titles for the PSP. Now, it seems Sony’s PSP may soon have no new UMD titles to call its own.
Falling sales and competition from Apple’s iPod have led some of the major movie makers to make recent comments about scaling back or pulling UMD release all together. Included in that list are such movie giants as Universal and Paramount.
Although the technology is pretty nifty, the fact UMD sales are low doesn’t seem all that surprising. Why buy a UMD title when a DVD can play on a regular television, a computer and a laptop?
According to news reports today, retail giant Wal-Mart is considering pulling UMDs off the shelves, or at least reducing its stock drastically.
In addition, Universal has bid farewell to the format. A high-placed executive at Universal, in an interview with Reuters, said, "It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-Ray."
Paramount Pictures, likewise, is said to be on the verge of giving the format the old heave-ho. "We continue to evaluate the PSP platform for each title, and if it makes sense for business reasons and the target audience, we will release them," Brenda Ciccone, a spokesperson for Paramount Pictures, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Image Entertainment also has turned its back on the format, while other studios, including 20th Century Fox and Buena Vista, have reduced the number of UMD titles scheduled for release.
In stark contrast to these recent moves, initial sales for the format were strong, with two productions from Sony Pictures selling more than 100,000 units within two months. But it wasn't long before sales of UMD movies sank.
At the time, industry experts said that Sony had given consumers too many choices. During the first five months following the PSP's launch in March 2005, some 239 movies and TV shows were released or scheduled for release on UMD.
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