UMD price drop leads to sales jump in Japan

While the news probably doesn't come as any surprise to you, it has apparently taken the execs behind the UMD movie scene quite some time to pinpoint price as the primary culprit of the lagging sales. The higher-ups at Warner Home Video reported that its UMD films weren't selling well awhile back -- presumably to no one's surprise but their own -- and even Wal-Mart has been teetering on dropping the slow-selling discs from its precious shelf space. In a less-than-revolutionary announcement, it seems implementing a "permanent sale" on UMD movies in Japan has increased sales nearly tenfold; pricing 22 (and counting) titles at ¥980 (about $8.46) has prompted PSP owners to snatch these up in unprecedented quantities, which is somewhat telling of where these things should've been priced at from the start. While we aren't exactly sure if this indefinite sale will make the jump to US shores, this "discovery" is a rare step forward for the flailing format, and we can only hope this reduction becomes the norm on all UMD flicks.

[Via MobileMag]

[Ebzy @ Sep 7th 2006 6:31AM]

about bloody time

[Matt Hadder @ Sep 7th 2006 6:59AM]

UMD: overpriced if even for free.
I still don't get it... Movies on PSP? With a portable DVD player you get a way bigger screen and you can use.... DVDs. They're only about ten thousand times more common.

[Jonathan Woods @ Sep 7th 2006 7:04AM]

Some shops in Ireland namely Golden Disks have started doing this as well. They have been selling UMD movies at €10 for the last few weeks and they seem to be flying out the door.

[Steve @ Sep 7th 2006 7:14AM]

Yeah, even portable DVD players are more expensive, can't play games and homebrews, can't fit your pocket, DVD are more expensive (than UMD) ... ?

[Neon @ Sep 7th 2006 7:47AM]

I have a PSP and enjoyed the UMD format, but once I started ripping my DVDs to the memory stick, I stopped buying UMDs. The battery lasts longer than having to spin the UMD constantly and though you do lose some compression, I can fit about three movies on a 1GB memory stick. It was an interesting feature, but give us better PSP games, Sony!

[hesh @ Sep 7th 2006 8:32AM]

PSP movies do provide a nice, more portable means of watching movies. It comes in way more handy on say, a bus or quick car ride or something like that.

People are always knocking the PSP, but the idea behind it is actually really good. It just wasn't implemented in the best way.

[Torontoguy @ Sep 7th 2006 9:38AM]

I just watched my first UMD movie on the PSP last night and was really impressed with the screen quality. Just fantastic!
I would welcome a drop in price but...more than that...a wider range of titles is essential. I am not all that enthused at what they are offering currently.

[Shannon @ Sep 7th 2006 9:49AM]

UMDs are also great for the convenience factor with the traveler. I was waiting at the Hawaii airport back in December for my 8-hour flight and was bored with the few games I brought for my PSP. I looked around for a store hopefully selling UMDs but unfortunately didn't see one. While you can rip movies yourself for free from your DVDs (making them the better value), you won't always have the time to do that. Like at the airport.

[Dukrous @ Sep 7th 2006 9:58AM]

Hesh: That's precisely why people knock it. Sony had no reason to fail but their own myopic view of the world. By developing a new disc standard, movie standard, compression standard, memory stick standard, and allowing applications to run a PSP except for what home users make, it was going to fail.

You can create one, maybe two, new ways to do things at a time. The PSP tried to strike out too far, even claiming UMD to be the DVD of the future. UMD is horrible. I see no reason to buy a UMD disk for $20 when I can buy a fully loaded DVD for the same price.

As for games...it's lacking. Outside of Hot Shots Golf and Lemmings, I don't see anything attractive on the PSP.

I hate Memory Stick DUO Pro XP Alpha 2...whatever. MiniSD is small enough, fast enough, and big enough to hold the data I need and it seems to be good enough for everyone else.

If Sony is going to abuse their standing in the video game world to push undesirable standards on people (I'm looking at you, bluray) then their products will continue to fail.

[++good @ Sep 7th 2006 10:17AM]

Better late than never.

[liam billington @ Sep 7th 2006 10:24AM]

I like value for money, I am not prepared to pay for a low resolution movie which I cannot play on my big sized TV.

I might as well pay £8-£16 for a DVD title which I will get more use out of.

I am willing to pay £5-£8 for movies to download or to come on UMD. The memory stick movies will be far too expensive.

[Will K @ Sep 7th 2006 10:25AM]

Maybe one of those Sony execs finally took ECON 101...

Lower Price --> Greater Demand

[Rushg60 @ Sep 7th 2006 10:37AM]

Watching movies on the PSP is not a bad experience at all. Even with the crappy speakers it's kept me and a guest entertained on long train ride/flight more than once. Putting movies on the memory stick is fine, but for under $10 I'd definately pick up a UMD at the airport etc. Hell, I pay $10 for a sandwich and bottled water at most airports.

[xfactor @ Sep 7th 2006 10:48AM]

Will K, do you go to University of Waterloo?

[Paul @ Sep 7th 2006 10:51AM]

The UMD's are already cheap here in Canada at least at the HMV's I've been to going for about 10$ CAD

[Scarpad @ Sep 7th 2006 11:19AM]

I have a bunch I've been buying under $10 here, still I recently bought a Cowon A2, it's 480x272 screen allows full rez so I get a great image from Xvid encoded files, and I can easily convert to xvid from the DVD, I really have no need for UMD's anymore.

[Wry Cooter @ Sep 7th 2006 1:04PM]

They might stay around if priced to be under 10 dollars with tax. They certainly aren't worth more than a fast food meal or two.

I also think they should bundle coupons in DVDs to have the UMD version mailed to you for five dollars or less. Actually, they should just include the UMD in the DVD packaging already, but that would create a glut of used/never used UMDs on the market, from people that have a DVD player but not a UMD player.

[I,Robot @ Sep 7th 2006 6:09PM]

duh....

[thomas_h @ Sep 8th 2006 7:35PM]

a norwegian etailer is selling almost all umd movies for 7$..

[bxbailey @ Sep 28th 2006 7:58AM]

Can anyone forward this to SCEA?

[Andrew Franklin @ Nov 19th 2006 10:41AM]

I've stopped purchasing normal DVD's in favour of UMD's since I bought my PSP, one reason space... I have over 150 DVD's and I've run out of space. I always purchase online from people like Play.com or Tesco Jersey instead of HMV or other high street shops, the dip in UMV sales could be linked to lower high street sales at the same time as record online shopping. My concern for UMV is the Studios losing faith to soon, if they released just films, which suit the market instead of their entire back catalogue they'd feel more reward. My friends felt at the start all UMD's should come with the normal DVD inside, which was priced just above normal DVD prices, for the peanuts it costs to create a DVD compared to the cost your actually paying for the license to the studios it would make sense. I hope the Japenese lead the way to a recovering of such a quality format. I don't have time to copy to expensive memory sticks and prefer the slip in a UMD and go method!

[yogi0526 @ Apr 2nd 2007 3:56PM]

if sony wants to sell more umds they should sell a seperate umd player for the home i have a good idea that umd has enough detail to fill out a 19 inch tv for the kids living at home so a kid can have his movies for his room that he can take on the road cause sitting at home no one wants to stare at the little screen when they have a tv right there. sony has a good idea and they havent explored it enough. if they made a umd player for the tv the kids can watch a show turn it off and finish it ridding in the back seat.