I
totally fail to understand some people.
I mean, Sony (or justKutaragi?) has said PSP is 'the Walkman of 21th
Century', that it will play games, music and video.
Then
some people say: 'Nay, PSP will flop because of UMD! You can not even write your own UMD's, you can not play your excisting CDs and DVDs. Closed Sony format is gonna suk!'
Let's look at the future.
PSP is near release, the Sony 'Hype machine' will start advertising PSP as 'Walkman of 21st Century' that plays games, music and video. All media will be on new UMD discs that are small and handy, with more capacity than CD's. You can also use Memory Sticks for transferring your own media'
People will buy the PSP, there will be many great games available at launch, maybe 5-10 UMD music discs from major popular artists, 1 or two UMD movie discs (maybe LOTR, Matrix, StarWars 3, Spiderman 2 or some other major title.)
People will be excited that they can watch movies on a portable device, so they might buy one or two movies. People will be excited of the new device and buy a couple of music discs.
Soon after the novelty has worn off, people realise that the small screen is not so great for big effects movies, and that they rather watch those films in their home system, with better surround sound and big screen.
Movies in UMD will not be a major selling point for PSP, just a nice extra.
I would not be surprised if the movie side of UMD will soon 'flop'.
People will be happy that they now have a one portable device that plays games, and also plays their favorite music.
But there's a catch... they can not copy any of their excisting music collection, that they have downloaded in MP3 with Kazaa.
'Oh f*ck!' they think. 'Do I actually have to go and
pay for the music I want to listen?!? But I haven't bought a single CD in years!'
Just to try out the PSP music playing, they go and buy their first legal music disc in 5 years.
It's good, but being a greedy b*sta*d, he thinks he'll stick with his MP3 player and free music. It's small enough to fit in pocket with PSP, and you can use the same headphones with both of them, so no big deal.
He might even buy a large memory stick, and copy some music from his HD there in PSP compatible format.
In a couple of years time, Sony will launch PS3 and along with it an internet portal where you can download music (and movies) to Memory Sticks. They will be cheaper than UMD media, even cheaper than buying the same music in CD (or film in DVD).
People will already have a PSP, they get interested in this new possibility and the PS3's fabulous games and technology, and they'll buy a PS3.
They'll download some music in PS3 (it has no HD), and copy it in PS3's UMD-RW disc. The UMD used in PS3 is using BluRay technology, and you can write either in BluRay (with 10GB capacity) or PSP UMD format. PS3 will propably have a 'dual size capable' disc tray, and it accepts both UMD discs and larger BluRay discs.
People will find this very handy, they can download media relatively cheap and fast. Many people had not even heard of PC PeerToPeer programs, and the free media that could be got there. And even those who previously downloaded all their media from Kazaa, will now dl much of their music directly from music companies, via PS3. Now they use their PC's and Kazaa mostly for downloading pron and other marginal material.
In short. I dont see the music and movies as any major selling point for PSP.
Of course Sony will advertise those highly. Why wouldn't they, if the machine is capable of those, and you just never know, if they will be a huge success.
Sony must know such a porprietary format has a huge uphill to achieve any significant market. But PSP will (most likely) sell, and it will (most likely) be profitable even if people only bought games for it. A portable disc-based gaming devise using standard CD's and DVD's would on the other hand be a 100% sure flop.
I don't believe no-one is excepting UMD to replace CDs, DVDs and other formats.
Those extra functions (GPS, movies, music...) are there if there appears a noteworthy market for them.