Only one year after Sony launched the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in the U.S., rumors are brewing that production of feature-length movies based on the PSP's proprietary Universal Media Disc (UMD) format will come to a screeching halt.
Who Needs Movies?
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."
Proprietary Technology
Part of the reason Sony is having this problem, said Mukul Krishna, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, is the proprietary nature of the UMD technology. While most other developers are moving to open formats that offer greater interoperability, Sony's focus on developing its own technologies ties users down to a single device.
"Anyone who is going for anything proprietary is shooting themselves in the foot," Krishna opined. "Unless it is a very niche market, it makes no sense having a proprietary format."
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