Despite the fact that, scientifically, nobody gives a damn about UMD, Sony isn’t about to pull the plug on it. Not no way, not no how. A senior marketing manager called the format’s future “bright,” a vote of confidence if I ever heard one. Describing it as “unique,” the word wizard then chided developers for not knowing how to properly use the format:
UMD is a unique medium to create games and developers need to understand that when tackling the system
Oooh, cat fight! That’s how you win, Sony, by calling your developers idiots for not knowing how to work around dreadful load times and relatively small storage space. That last point is more of an issue on the PSP than, say, the Nintendo DS because developers are more apt to regard the PSP as a home system that just happens to be portable, whereas the DS is clearly a portable (read: simple) system.
And how many UMD movies have you purchased? I’m hovering around the zero mark, personally. But then again, I’m a cheap cynic.
We’ll never walk away from UMD, says Sony’s John Koller [Pocket Gamer via Next Gen]
Sony’s undying attempts at getting a proprietary format to stick are supremely annoying. It’s clear to me that their entire business model hinges on the major market dominance of at least one format. Every product they put out there is nothing more than a trojan horse attempt to force you into one of their many formats. The PSP and the UMD format. . . the PS3 and Blu-Ray. . . digital cameras and the 1.5 million variations of memory sticks. . . freakin’ ATRAC3. . . .
At this point – I don’t even care which format is truly “better”. . . I just want the one that will allow the greatest flexibility. Not getting that from Sony, lately.
“We’ll never walk away from UMD”… Famous last words. Sony is always good at those!