Bye Bye Stupid Sony UMD Movie Disks

Sony
adding new wing to Museum of Failed Formats over at Good Morning Silicon
Valley has me smiling once again at the great post headlines GMSV always has.
They’re talking about how various movie studios are going to stop selling movies
on Sony’s stupid UMD format.

The Sony PlayStation Portable is the only Sony product I currently own. I’ve
looked at Sony cameras and laptops in the past but have been turned off by the
insistence for the Memory Stick format rather than supporting more standard
things like SD Cards. With UMD, Sony continued its preference for dumb
proprietary formats.

When I got the PSP, I’d considered getting a movie on UMD. But it just made no
sense. Spend $20 for a movie I could play only on my PSP versus $20 for a DVD I
can play in a variety of devices plus rip to play on the PSP via memory card?
Please.

I’d wondered if UMD prices might drop to something more reasonable, say $3 to
$5, but that hasn’t happened. I’d heard rumors that somewhere, UMDs were being
bundled with DVDs. If so, that made more sense — but I’ve never once saw an
offering like this in any retail store or game shop.

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending a little more quality time with my PSP on the game
front, doing some good work for the Rebels in Star Wars: Battlefront II. But the
PSP remains as unimpressive in load times. You just sit there listening to that
UMD game disk whirl and whirl, until at last, your game finally begins. And then
after that hard fought victory, there’s the inevitable crash before you can
save.

In contrast, my kids load games superfast on their Nintendo DSes. The Nintendo
DS Lite is coming (and there’s a great, great short video look at it
here).
But come on Nintendo, give us what Sony should have — a larger screen and maybe
a hard drive, or at least a standard memory plug in so we can watch movies and
go more than gaming on the device.