Sony Says UMD Is Here To Stay

PlayStation Portable senior marketing manager John Koller spoke with the Pocket Gamer site about the much-maligned UMD format. The disc used in the PSP for both games and movies, few stores carry UMD movies any more. Just the same, says Koller, Sony supports it 100%. From the interview: "'UMD possesses many strengths, from size to form factor to portability,' he says. The same can easily be said of the UMD's cartridge counterpart on Nintendo DS. However, ease of UMD manufacturing is seen as a winning benefit. 'Duplication of UMDs is much easier, cheaper than cartridges,' Koller adds. 'We've really optimized time and cost by going with a disc-based format.' On the topic of UMD weaknesses, Koller is candid: 'There's no question the biggest weakness is related to porting games from other platforms. Publishers are concerned about the size of UMD because they can't cram a DVD game on to it.'"

Sony wouldn't lie...

[earthbound kid]

Allow me to quote a post on the last /. Sony story [slashdot.org]:

• "$499 PS3 rumored"
  
  
• "$499 PS3 denied by Sony CEO"
  
  
• "Sony rejects $499 PS3"
  
  
• "Sony Spokesman says $499 a hoax"
  
  
• "$499 PS3 confirmed"

Allow me to add one more bullet:

• "Sony Says UMD Is Here To Stay"

Anyone have a guess about tomorrow's headline?...

Strengths

[laurens]

"'UMD possesses many strengths, from size to form factor to portability,' he says.

Not only that. It's also rather small, its dimensions are less-than-huge, it fits inside a reasonably sized box, not much space is generally taken by these disks and you can put many of them in one standard shirt pocket. Not to mention it's engineered not to be very big and there are lots of objects that take much more space. Geez, know your product's strengths man.

The title of this article seem incomplete.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sony says UMD is here to stay; consumers not buying it."

Re:cartridge vs cd/dvd?

[Wordplay]

Only with a Sharpie, but I don't recommend it. :)

What country?

[tepples]

do I buy it on DVD, rip and convert it to play from a Memory Stick, using less battery power, and costing less to boot

What country lets its citizens do this? The United States sure doesn't (17 USC 1201).

Re:1000 per cent jump as a result of deep discount

[El_Muerte_TDS]

OMG 1000 per cent jump!?

That means that they sold 11 UMD movies?

Re:Sony wouldn't lie...

[earthbound kid]

I wouldn't say I put much effort into this. Copy, paste, add a couple bullet points, et viola.

Re:Sony wouldn't lie...

[Minwee]

That's a pretty obvious progression:

• "UMD denied by Sony CEO"
• "Sony rejects UMD"
• "Sony Spokesman says UMD a hoax"

Re:Not Made Here syndrome.

[toleraen]

Don't forget CDs and DATs. Terrible, insignificant formats indeed.

Translation follows...

[Chris Mattern]

"Here to stay" : "We can't *give* the damn things away"