Well maybe Sony will still suport , also in Japan a whole bunch of producers still suport it with all kinds of Animes and XXX movies ( I know , make fun of me ) .

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at least xxx movies would sell, i think anime is a great way to sell it. UMD will die out, but then it will come back because when the last movie comes out everyone will buy it BECAUSE its the last UMD, so sony will say, they are selling great, lets bring them back. Vicious cycle

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Sony is notorious for coming out with great mediums, but marketing them horribly. Mini Discs come to mind (if you don't know what it is you prove my point). I think they need to get off this self-righteous trip and outsource their marketing or something, because they do a HORRIBLE job in-house.

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I don't see why Sony doesn't

1. package the UMD with the Blu-ray counterpart

2. Drop the price of all UMDs to $9.99 and under

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I would never purchase a UMD for more than $5-$8.

Reduced quality and non exclusive so anything more than that is not justified.

I too lament the UMD as similar to the MiniDisc...a great format that wasn't targeted correctly. (Except in Japan)

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Why do they do that, I think it is silly to list the dates like that.

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if Sony would release a UMD burner for the PC and blank media I would gladly watch movies off of them from my own collection....

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We had this discussion recently so pardon my rehash ...

First off, I wholly believe that the UMD as a media format is dead, Dead, DEAD. And has been for a long time.

OK, let's remember a couple of things to temper our expectations:
- Apple is selling download movies for ~$12 on iTunes.
- There have been numerous reports of how download movie sales are lackluster.

I don't believe Apple would have priced them above $10 is they didn't have to (i.e. greedy publishers), and while I will pre-agree that the iPod screen is much less desirable for watching a 2 hour movie than the PSP, I don't think that the difference would make the PSP a download movie selling success. (especially given the ratio of sold iPods to PSP's) ... I tend to think that most people watching downloaded movies have found another way to get them.

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I still buy UMD movies, though generally not for more than $10--I stocked up during the recent $5 anime clearance at GameStop.

If UMDs had been bundled with DVDs or Blu-Ray movies, I think the format would really have taken off. Or if the prices had been cheaper to begin with--no way I'm paying $20 or $25 for a UMD that doesn't have all the extras/documentaries/etc. that come with a standard DVD that often sells for $15 the first week of release. So while I'm a big fan of the format, I only have about 8 movies total, mostly my all time favorites that I've watched at least 30 times.

It's a shame--I really enjoy watching UMD movies on my PSP. I have a cruddy TV at home (if I'd stop spending money on games, I could upgrade, but I digress) and the clarity of movies on the PSP just blows away my home setup. Sure, I can rip my own movies, and have done so for a few of my favorites that aren't available on UMD. But that's very time-consuming and eats up a lot of space on my MS Duo, and of course you can't get the same full-screen picture or audio quality when you do it yourself.

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The problem was simply the cost. UMDs should have been a pack-in with a DVD release.

I must confess that I will only buy a UMD movie at a clearance price.

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The only UMD movie I own is Spider-man 2, the one that came with the PSP when it was first release. And even though the movie was a good kicker, given how expensive the UMD movies are, it was pretty obvious that there would be no market for them. Bad decisions from Sony made it happen, anyway.

I too think that cheap anime would be a good choice to make some money, but meh, with movies like Stomp the Yard...

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I think that this year will see the release of the Playstation movie and music stores... So, if it's not Stomp the Yard on May 15th, the last UMD will be pretty close to that.

I've always found it odd they never cut a deal with Fox to get the Simpsons and Futurama on UMD - not only do they have a huge fanbase, they're also the perfect things to carry around with you. Hopefully they'll work something out like that for the download store.

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i really enjoy umd's, but i also really liked my mini disc player, so mahes, i think you're right. i don't mind buying new ones, but i do really think twice if they're over $15 bucks or so. i think that it's true part of the problem is the stuff that's available - while i think it's great that you can get some skate vids, why isn't sony trying to get stuff like simpsons, or adult swim on there? if they re-think the content this format could be saved. and if not, hopefully i'll be getting a lot more cheap UMD's.

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If UMDs would retail at 9.99$ I would go out and buy them . I wont give out 20 $ when I can put it on my memstick for free ( its true it takes time ) . 9.99 $ is a resonable price , and if many would come out ...

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i own sin city, pulp fiction, up in smoke tour umds. pulp fiction umd broke in half. glued it. they put crappy stuff on umd. the latest releases suck. was there bewitched movie? Put new family guy, simpsons. for sure put the new grindhouse movie on umd.

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I owned a psp for 2 years and I have yet to buy a UMD movie. The reason being is cost, its absurd to buy a UMD movie for the price of a dvd. Drop the price to as low as $10 Sony and then we'll talk.

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I agree with the above posts.

UMD has been dead for quite some time... Hell I honestly didn't even think they made movies on UMD anymore.

Sony tries to force formats like this down our throats *cough*PS3*cough*, and the result is always the same: A dead format.

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The only UMD movies that I own are ones that I think that no-one else in my family would wan't to watch. Personally, I would prefer to buy a DVD, which I can rip to my computer, and then put on my 4GB memory stick for my PSP.
Nobody is going to buy them if DVDs can be ripped to computers, the only way of selling them is to include them with DVDs or BDs

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@Ken, actually I believe blue-ray is outselling HD discs in sales by a ratio of 3:1.

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@ RocketGoddess: PSP Hacked Firmware 3.03 OE-B introduced the ability to playback homemade videos at full resolution, as in the ability to encode a video at 480x272. Granted, the videos are kind of big, but it's not *that* bad.

I haven't bought a single UMD video. Here's what Sony would have to do to fix this:
1.) Price at $9.99 or below (everyone agrees)
2.) Make it a more open format, so other studios can easily release for it. I could care less for Stomp the Yard, but I'd love to get Casino Royale (mentioned above, but at a good price), Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and so on for PSP.
3.) Pack-Ins are a great idea. I'd pay $25 for a DVD with a packed-in UMD, even if that UMD had *no* extras at all.
4.) Rentals. The PSP is excellent as a portable media device, emphasis on PORTABLE. Part of the reason sales are lackluster is because no one really plans to watch Borat a ton of times on their PSP's tiny screen. However, I'd pay $5 to rent a UMD on my flight home. And I've noticed more than a few people carrying around PSPs when I flew around last, so they've already got an audience. Or see if you can get someone like BlockBuster or NetFlix can rent out UMDs, because most of the time, I don't buy a UMD because I only really intend to view it once, in certain situations (IE: on a trip)
5.) Bonuses. Not exactly a stellar idea, but packed-in wallpapers, demos, things like that, wouldn't be too bad an idea. UMDs have 1.8 GB capacity, and 480x272 PNGs use less than a meg. Demos run between eight and 32 MB, depending. The largest save file I've seen was 512 KB. Pack a few of those in with a UMD, maybe people will care a *little* more. Not a ton, but it might be ignored a bit less. Think DVD-ROM extras.
6.) Interoperability. Sell a UMD drive for the PS3, or let the PSP act as one, so you can play your UMD on TVs. It won't complete with DVDs, or (Sony's hopeful) BluRay, but it'll make the format suck less. A TV-Out so you can directly hook your PSP up to a TV (like the GP2X) would be nice, but somehow I doubt that'll happen.
7.) Push the format on to different devices. Make other products (First and third party) that use UMDs, so it's less like you're buying a movie JUST for your PSP, but a movie for multiple items. Talk with Archos, Samsung, iRiver, etc., see if they'll put a UMD drive in there. It doesn't need to play games, it just has to be able to read the video and audio content, and I think those three manufacturers already use H.264/AVC decoders in their devices.

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