HappySqurriel said:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/01/137211 After what some deemed a slow start, Sony is now claiming that they've sold slightly more than 17 Million UMDs since the launch of the PSP. 9 Million of these discs have been games, with just over 8 Million UMD movies. From the article: "Current manufacturing lines are stretched to the max - Bob Hurley, with Sony DADC, says that Sony is churning out 200,000 UMDs a day and future capacity is expected to be 500,000 per day. 'Tiger Woods Golf is my personal favorite [game], but video has been surprisingly good to us,' says Hurley. In a few years Sony expect videos to be more than 60 percent of all UMD sales, with an expected 130 million UMDs being sold in 2008." http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/19/170211 1up is running a piece examining Hollywood's relationship with Sony's UMD format. From the article: "Two UMD movies sold 100,000 units within two months. By contrast, one of the earliest DVD releases, Air Force One, took nine to achieve the same goal. DVD and ticket sales are on the decline, Hollywood needs a new source of revenue while they pick up the pieces, and PSP's handheld UMD format is turning into the glowing solution." Relatedly, Next Generation is running an article taking a look at the increasing quality of original games coming out for Sony's handheld. From the article: "After an embarrassingly slow start, the PSP has begun to find its niche with developers; likewise, Sony's internal studios and publishing division have gotten really adventuresome lately, with big and little games, both in tested genres and genres those games serve to test." DVD had a lot going against its rapid adoption, players started out at over $1000, laserdisc was a very similar format and was widly considered a failure, it lacked many of the features of the format it was replacing (recording), and it wasn't included in a mainstream consumer device (read gaming console) for several years after it was released. Basically, most formats will have faster early adoption to DVD. |
ill gladly debate laserdisc and why it failed. but UMD isnt comparable as it wasnt home media. tracking UMD vs. dvd or Blu-ray isnt logical since it cant be played as home cinema...just two different things....just because UMD was tracking higher than DVD, which doesnt matter since theyre different products to begin with......had we been having this discussion when UMD was starting out id be firmly argueing UMD isnt a mass market product.
The basis for tech failure or success is based on improvement and unchange. By that, laserdiscs were massive and ahea dof their time...no one felt the need for that improvement and at its price and size it was too large of a change. UMD's made DVD players go away. People were comfortable with their discs, CD's, DVD's it was normal to people....UMD gave people an on the go option for their PSP but the market was unsustainable based on the advantage when compared to portable DVD's players.
Enter Blu-ray. People love Hi Definition. We see it for sporting events. General consumers "get" HD. They see the football games on sunday in HD and love it...they see the quality, they invest in a large HD TV they want to use it. They see the benefit. As opposed to laserdisc the price isnt outrageous, the disc isnt goofy and all you need to SEE the benefits is the HD TV which is becoming standard in many homes. People want normalcy with improvement...they want to understand why theyre spending extra money....aside form collecters and enthusiests people didnt understand laserdsiscs...whereas people understand HD, they understand movies....thus i think Blu-ray is a bit different.
Discussing simply numbers doesnt do justice to the debate that needs to be had when discussing the adoption of Blu-ray. The only thing that will settle this is time...and just as i said in the previous LordKNight "HD DVD vs. BD" debates...im fairly confident im right as well. so i guess ill pop back in sometime in the fall when Blu-ray is a phenomenon this xmas.
