I have said it right from the first day that the PSP went public. The general movie fan does not want to watch movies on a small hand held device. Yet all the industry people were talking about was how Sony PSP was going to revolutionize how people watched films. There were wild and outrageous predictions that UMD films would rival DVDs in sales. All the while I said “NONSENSE!” (I’m such an arrogant prick aren’t I?)
Well guess what boys and girls, with sales falling way below expectations, Sony has now announced that they’re actually cutting back on the number of movies that will be released on UMD for the PSP and a bunch of films that already had released dates announced have been axed. The good folks over at Variety give us this:
While comedies that appeal to the core young male gamer demo are doing well, execs say other PSP movies simply aren’t selling.
Yeah, no kidding Sherlock.
Watching movies on a hand held is a novelty at best. It was doomed to never be a legitimate movie format, and now that all the initial hype has passed, all that’s left is the cold hard truth. UMD’s don’t sell. Yes, it will always have a novelty factor, and there will always be a limited interest in the format… but that’s about the extent of it.
