UMD a waste of time and money, says Perry

[Shrygue]

via Games Industry (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28697)


The UMD is a dead format that's a waste of money, time, and investment according to David Perry.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, the Shiny founder and operator of GameConsultants.com revealed what he would do if he were in charge of PlayStation Portable development.


"They really need to restart the PSP programme in my book. They really need to bring out the PSP 3.0 and start again and try to get a lot of units out by reducing the manufacturing costs, by taking out all the motors and drives and stuff they have in there."

"That will make it even more sexy-looking, because it will be thinner again when they get all that junk out. Then, hopefully, the platform will actually get enough interest so that people will make a game specifically for it," Perry said.

He referred to the recent PSP Slim and Lite remodel as a "head in the sand" move.

As for what current PSP owners will do with their UMDs if Sony turns to a download-only handheld, Perry said that it would be fairly trivial to include software to validate that a user owns a certain game, much like iTunes. With authentication, users should be allowed to download digital versions of UMD games they already own.

When questioned as to why Sony hadn't already done this, Perry responded: "The truth is, the stores will not carry PSPs unless they feel they are going to get a piece of the action on the back end. And Sony has not come up with an innovative business model that can support that concept."

But with the industry moving in the direction of digital downloads, Sony needs to come up with a shared revenue system eventually.


"Maybe its an even slightly better deal because there is no cost of goods, and shipping, insurance, and warehousing is all out the window...so maybe the store gets a little bit more. And they get more of their shelf space back, which is their most valuable asset."

The complete interview with Dave Perry will be published tomorrow on GamesIndustry.biz

[luis_05]

I dont think UMD's are a waste of time, maybe his face is, but Sony has really done a bad job marketing UMd's freaking 25 dollars for a umd vid that doesnt have all the features of the regular dvd? yeah not good. oh well though thats sony

Maddox said it best in his blog:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit

[shorty_carnage]

That would be a brilliant idea all my umd's have broke i back them all up and never take them anywhere, in fact prob couldnt tell you where half of them are.

psp should be download only perhaps games would be cheaper!

[Cokemusic]

The last time I used a UMD was to downgrade my PSP and that was 3 months ago , sais alot about how I feel about UMD's

[zanco]

I don't really think UMD's are waste of money and resources not all. Surely it adds to the loading time, but think about it, not everyone has a massive 2 GB memory stick. Furthermore, I don't think anyone will be happy to have to copy a 1GB game to memory stick each time he/she wants to play them a different title. THAT would definitelly be a waste of time.
And there is also piracy. At least UMD is a physical proof that you have purchased the game.

In my opinion, UMD is what makes the psp... the psp. It makes it sexy, being able to put that little disc in my psp and run it as if it was a "small playstation" is what makes me the happiest :)

[Buddy4point0]

my umd drive doesnt work, plus ive never owned a umd movie. so i donno

[xg917]

"They really need to restart the PSP programme in my book. They really need to bring out the PSP 3.0 and start again and try to get a lot of units out by reducing the manufacturing costs, by taking out all the motors and drives and stuff they have in there."


removing motors and drives? that means officially stopping homebrew from running and no firmware updates and no internet and no music or video support. so basicly just make the PSP a game only device? that sounds like shit, i would rather buy something multimedia wise rather than just have it do one thing.

[kjetil1991]

umds are ok im used to have discs for playing games i was nintendo ds player before so im used to use cds cart ridges

[Mister Klownes]

Why does everyone always piss and moan about UMD? IT'S A PORTABLE CONSOLE, EVERY PORTABLE CONSOLE HAS HAD A PROPRIETARY FORMAT! Get over it, for the love of God. No one ever says the NDS cart's are a waste of time, or the GBA carts, or, I dunno, every nintendo proprietary fromat from N64 back. People just love to jump on Sony about going out and trying new things.

[SmashinGit]

I have 15 umd games and 4 umd movies. I'm perfectly happy with the format but I do believe that many companies now do not view umd's as a viable format. I also believe that piracy has played a very large part in the demise of the format.

[hacksparrow]

Why does everyone always piss and moan about UMD? IT'S A PORTABLE CONSOLE, EVERY PORTABLE CONSOLE HAS HAD A PROPRIETARY FORMAT! Get over it, for the love of God. No one ever says the NDS cart's are a waste of time, or the GBA carts, or, I dunno, every nintendo proprietary fromat from N64 back. People just love to jump on Sony about going out and trying new things.
no but the umd is retarded in essense of loadin. pick any handheld console, there has bin zero discs that load, and are significantly faster than umd.

[steve520]

bah umd's okay but if they removed it imagine how lite the psp slim would be.

[IDidMyTime]

I agreed months ago that UMDS are a mistake in my view, and also a horrid way to try and push a new format on the market, Its a waste of time, money and effort, and the verdict cleary is written on the wall that nobody cares about the format.

Think about it this way, how much better would it of been if they used mini dvd? You could burn you own emulators and movies and pop it in and run it. It probably would of bought costs down and made the PSP cheaper, also if they wanted to do movies sooo badly for the PSP, if they did them on mini dvd, i expect most dvd players can play them, so they wouldnt restrict them to just the handheld.

[Mr.Denny]

I've yet to disagree with Dave!.

[Psyberjock]

I think Sony could have done better than the UMD, but it was a cheap solution to an existing problem at the time the PSP was first released, now almost 3 years ago.

I don't agree that Sony has to come up with some sort of profits sharing system. Sure it would be nice if they did, but why should they give money to people who don't sell games? They sell game systems, so of course they should profit from that. Do you think Apple gives stores money for all the iTunes downloads? NO! The stores just sell tons of iPods and iPod accessories. Probably half their money comes from those damn protectors, speakers, and headphones.

Perry you, my good sir, are a banana toasting moron.

[jamotto]

Think about it this way, how much better would it of been if they used mini dvd? You could burn you own emulators and movies and pop it in and run it. It probably would of bought costs down and made the PSP cheaper, also if they wanted to do movies sooo badly for the PSP, if they did them on mini dvd, i expect most dvd players can play them, so they wouldnt restrict them to just the handheld.

It's a nice idea, but if you want DVD quality video on a mini dvd you would be restricted by the 30 minute recording time. Unless you switch to VCR quality then you would then have 2 hour recording times.

[discombobulated]

I've always been a fan of carts ever since the NES days. We all know they're resilient as ****. UMD's look cool in a way but that's about it. I, for the longest time, figured the future of physical media as cartridges with memory cards getting smaller and higher in capacity. Of course, SD is expensive right now but it'll only get cheaper. But the problem with that is that game developers keep pushing the game size to the max capabilities of current technology keeping the cartridge format expensive. idk, just sharing some thoughts. I don't really see any better alternative than UMD's at the moment, especially since not everyone has a broadband connection suitable for downloading 1+ gig games in a quick manner.

[Qmark]

"by taking out all the motors and drives and stuff they have in there."Ah, but here's the rub: Take out the UMD drive and go download-only, and the unit would need either a hard drive (with drives and motors all over again), or a functionally unaffordable 'solid-state drive' (meaning a high-capacity bank of flashram).

Going the HD route would make the PSP a ~$400 machine for the capacity of about twenty UMD's (assuming roughly 1gb/UMD), or a >$1000 machine with the same solid-state capacity. Neither of these would serve to make the machine any more 'secure' than it is now.


This screams elitism, possibly also antiwalmartism.

[Veskgar]

Why does everyone always piss and moan about UMD? IT'S A PORTABLE CONSOLE, EVERY PORTABLE CONSOLE HAS HAD A PROPRIETARY FORMAT! Get over it, for the love of God. No one ever says the NDS cart's are a waste of time, or the GBA carts, or, I dunno, every nintendo proprietary fromat from N64 back. People just love to jump on Sony about going out and trying new things.


I've always been a fan of carts ever since the NES days. We all know they're resilient as ****.

Funny you mention that. I was thinking too how my 20+ year old NES cartridges still work. Its a fight a lot of the time to insert the cartridge and have the NES read them. But that is mostly due to the low quality of the metal connectors inside the NES. The cartridges and games still work.

That's a very good point. I think a lot of it is how many people have seen the huge improvement in loading UMD backups off the memory stick. Then when you go back to UMD its agonizing waiting for the loading.

However, if SONY's UMD cache is efficient enough, it could revive people's opinion of UMD.

Also, for me to start putting my UMD's in as opposed to their corresponding backups, SONY will need to release a new version of the "STAMINA" battery for the Slim & Lite.

[Basil Zero]

hmm maybe this person should make a portable system of his own and have digital downloads :)

[xg917]

how about allow homebrew and everybody shut up and play psp :)

[IDidMyTime]

It's a nice idea, but if you want DVD quality video on a mini dvd you would be restricted by the 30 minute recording time. Unless you switch to VCR quality then you would then have 2 hour recording times.

Remeber the main purpose of these movies will be to use on a PSP, the screen has a very low resolution so quality isnt paramount. You can get decent quality with Divx, Xvid or WMV you can encode movies with those at a very respectable rate and they will only come to around 800mb, you will never get DVD quality on a mini, but you could have a cheap, stripped down version with just the movie on and encoded in its native resolution. They may of even encoded the movies on MP4 with a simple title screen.

I think the size of a single layer mini dvd which is 1.4gb would of been more then enough for the PSP.

[cataphrax]

Its not as though sony's trying to beat out hd and blu-ray with umd. They just released a proprietary format for their machine just like every other video game system manufacturer. If it's too slow for you then back it up to your memory stick or deal with it. The psp plays dvd quality film, has the best graphics ever for a portable, supports loads of homebrew, music, movies, and emulation for loads of systems and this guys whining that his umd isn't loading fast enough and people would rather have dvds and download services, therefore sony should start all over. If this guy doesen't like umds he should just get a ds and stop his b*tchin

[Broonale]

UMD?

I haven't used mine in months!

[bah]

I dont think people should be too quick to encourage companies to discontinue delivering content on a physical media and go all digital.

There is much to be said for having that physical copy over a digital delivery service, from locking content to one (or a few) consoles, loss of the ability to resell the game, services/net connections that go down and the app wants authentication etc.

Once you add DRM its no longer like homebrew that you can back up anywhere and then copy to any console you want at a later date.

[Johnny Rash]

It's the fault of piracy.

[b8a]

This screams elitism, possibly also antiwalmartism.
Well put. I think that a lot of hard core video gamers and industry insiders tend to forget that the VAST majority of people don't have in-home access to high-speed internet. By choosing to offer games via download only, you would cut off virtually everyone who can't afford high-speed internet access.

It would also be a double whammy for the console maker as the same people who have high-speed internet access are the exact same people who are regularly involved in media piracy. They'd be catering to a population that has made it very clear that they don't believe that digital media has any calcuable worth.

I'm all for streamlining and getting rid of excess, but Mr. Perry's statement just demonstrates markedly soft-headed thinking. The idea of a download-only console sounds like a good idea in principle, but society's at least five to ten years away from being ready for it. It's far too early to tank the PSP on this concept.

If Mr. Perry had wanted to point out that the prices of Memory Sticks are constantly falling while their capacity is constantly increasing, he would have been able to make a far better arguement for the demise of the UMD format by advocating simply selling media pre-installed on Memory Sticks. By selling media on Memory Sticks you have the EXACT same potential customers, available physical retail space increases, ALL of the current problems with the UMD format are solved, and Sony already has DRM built-in via Magic Gate technology. The concept is a winner on all fronts.

Getting rid of UMD is a step toward the right idea, but mandating downloads is the completely wrong solution. But then again, the fact that none of us are playing a console from Mr. Perry shows exactly how much he knows about the practical development and marketing of a successful console.

[jim80b]

If Mr. Perry had wanted to point out that the prices of Memory Sticks are constantly falling while their capacity is constantly increasing, he would have been able to make a far better arguement for the demise of the UMD format by advocating simply selling media pre-installed on Memory Sticks. By selling media on Memory Sticks you have the EXACT same potential customers, available physical retail space increases, ALL of the current problems with the UMD format are solved, and Sony already has DRM built-in via Magic Gate technology. The concept is a winner on all fronts.
console.


interesting concept
surely Song can source blank 2GB cards for low prices ... (UMD max capacity is 1.8 GB so most games would be fine on smaller ones)
we know theres a sony iso loader so could this be the future?
they would have to encrpt the file and leave an area for savegames



the high price of UMD videos killed the format. if users could make thier own umds or a dvd came with packaged with a umd it would have been a success as a video / music format
the cost of a memory stick these days makes it a much more attractive format for us as we can put our own content on

[Accordion]

The trouble with using memory sticks for games is an increased risk in piracy and lower profits on the media sold.

[BloodLust8]

My only issue with the umb format is that its to expensive. 25+ dollars for a movie, WTF????? and the games could be a crap load cheaper aswell.

One of the biggest reasons why playstaion1 made it so big was cause the data storage system (this case CD's) was incredibly cheap which was hundreds of times cheaper than cartridges.

[ayhoung]

this perry d00d shud make a fricken psp himself hes an idiot

[IDidMyTime]

this perry d00d shud make a fricken psp himself hes an idiot

Should never really call someone a idiot when hes making the kinda money you wish you had.

[hacksparrow]

Should never really call someone a idiot when hes making the kinda money you wish you had.
ayhoung he's the ceo of shiny entertainment. an awesome company, he's no idiot.

[carlitx]

I dont think UMD's are a waste of time, maybe his face is, but Sony has really done a bad job marketing UMd's freaking 25 dollars for a umd vid that doesnt have all the features of the regular dvd? yeah not good. oh well though thats sony

Maddox said it best in his blog:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit

i agree here, if sony were to turn to digital downloads and a HDD built into the PSP we would just have a bigger fancier iPod to hack into and with all the pirating on the net these days it ould take 2 seconds to find the game on a torrent web site or p2p network. also i think it would make the psp easier for hackers, well, to hack lol. i think sony just needs to market better with better prices and such.