Sony Reveals UMD Movie Prices

[Snoop]

It seems that Sony has decided to price its UMD movies at similar prices to current DVD's sold in the US and Japan. I guess some people will be asking "What's the point?" of purchasing a movie on UMD, when it has less storage space, therefore perhaps resulting in inferior sound and image.

I personally don't think this is going to catch on as much as Sony would like.

Click here for the full article.

[Snoop]

Movies launched on the PlayStation Portable's UMD format in the USA will retail for between $20 and $30, in line with local DVD pricing, while Chinese movie House of Flying Daggers has now been added to the line-up.

The bulk of the titles which arrive near the launch of the system will retail at $19.99, including Hellboy, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, XXX and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, while Spider-Man 2 will be provided free with the console.

The newly announced sixth UMD movie title, House of Flying Daggers, will come in at the higher price point of $28.95 - it's not entirely clear why, or whether the movie will come with a set of extras or an additional disc to justify this higher cost.

The new figures put UMD movies broadly in line with their equivalent DVD releases in terms of retail price points, which is likely to attract criticism in some quarters since UMDs hold significantly less data than DVD discs, and as such provide, in theory, lower quality picture and sound.

Japanese pricing for UMD movie titles was also revealed yesterday, with Sony announcing that titles there will retail for around 3,900 Yen - approximately 28 Euro, which is in line with the significantly higher cost of DVDs in the region.

[silentace]

"in theory, lower quality picture and sound."

Not really concidering picture size is almost nothing. no need for 1080i or any bullshit like that. Crunching a normal dvd to 4gigs is no problem... use 1/4th the image size and there yah go around a gig of space is all they need. quality will be just the same as DVD just who wants to pay for a movie only playable on a psp?

[Liquidvlade]

I think it's really stupid... buying a movie limited to the PSP. Having to watch it in a small screen. It might be good those kids who travel a lot but for anybody else meh. I still think the NDS is going to be much better.

[r4dius]

they'll have to change their mind if they want to sell some

[eagley]

I personally don't think this is going to catch on as much as Sony would like.

i think the whole PSP thing is a waste of money. With its price tag and the price of games..movies..acc.etc., it'll be better to buy the real thing "the console" instead of a portable device which most people would only use at home anyway. Its like laptops...most of them end up on the desktop and the extra money u paid was just cause it "looks cool".

[HypERSoniC]

hm...i don't know. i have a total of 4 hours of travel time on the train every day to go to university. i usually spend thoes hours revising my notes, but the time could be used much more efficiently - playing the psp !

[kayjay]

instead of SELLING their movies on umd, they could bundle coupons with PSP or special DVd-movies, so that we could get those moves for free or cheaper. no one is going to buy movies on UMD - and they know that.
they are only doing this, because they want to stress that the PSP is "multimedia device" and not a console. BTW: they did the same with PS2...

[aznpulse]

this is where they get greedy and ****y with there console. i seriously think it's already off to a bad start.

[digdug]

hm...i don't know. i have a total of 4 hours of travel time on the train every day to go to university. i usually spend thoes hours revising my notes, but the time could be used much more efficiently - playing the psp !

man 4 hours of travel time...i would shoot myself...anyways...is there any word on a blank UMD?...cuz if they are like $20 each...you could probably just put a bunch of divx movies on them