UMD a Waste of Time, Money and Investment, Says Perry
By Chris on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 10:46 AM PST In Sony
David Perry, founder of Shiny and operator of GameConsultants.com, isn’t particularly high on the PlayStation Portable’s choice of media. In fact, he thinks UMD is a waste of time, money, and investment. He goes so far as to suggest that Sony needs to re-think the entire strategy for PSP game distribution.
“They really need to restart the PSP programme in my book. They really need to bring out the PSP 3.0 and start again and try to get a lot of units out by reducing the manufacturing costs, by taking out all the motors and drives and stuff they have in there.”
“That will make it even more sexy-looking, because it will be thinner again when they get all that junk out. Then, hopefully, the platform will actually get enough interest so that people will make a game specifically for it,” Perry said.
Digital distribution seems like a fine option, but Perry also explained why this method hasn’t been employed by Sony.
“The truth is, the stores will not carry PSPs unless they feel they are going to get a piece of the action on the back end. And Sony has not come up with an innovative business model that can support that concept.”
Couldn’t games on memory sticks be a solution? While I certainly agree that UMD is a poor format, and a change on that front would be tremendously beneficial to the PSP (better battery life and smaller size, to cite two reasons), I can’t imagine Sony creating a true sequel to the PSP anytime soon. Not if they don’t want to piss off all of the people who are now going out and buying the new PSP Lite (PSP 2000; whatever) – which, by the way, the release of was a “head in the sand” move on the part of Sony.
He’s not the only one.
PSP fixes should be:
1. Touch screen (From DS)
2. Flash memory storage instead of UMD
3. wireless G
4. Optional USB/wireless conection for PS2/PS3 controler
5. video out port to connect to TV.
6. better video support regular media, Avi/Mpg.
7. input microphone for voice recozation in games. (From DS)
This would make one awesome PSP, I already own a PSP and a DS. the PSP has the power, the DS has the convience of touch screen and interactive games.
“Then, hopefully, the platform will actually get enough interest so that people will make a game specifically for it,”
Eh? Is 25m+ sales not enough?
He is right that it would be better system without an optical disk (although there isn’t really much wrong with it anyway) but he has completely missed one very important fact. He says it would cut manufacturing costs which it would but Sony’s profit on game sales would take a huge hit because its a damn sight more expensive to manufacture a cartridge than a disk.
Xboxlenny said: 5. video out port to connect to TV.
The new PSP has that.
UMD is soon dead. Its the nail in the coffin. They should switch to cartridge based. The cost saved on mechanics on the UMD drive, would more than make up for the cheap cost of Flash memory cartridges, flash memory is everywhere now, you get more storage, reliable storage, and its getting cheaper and cheaper for more space. its common sence flash memory is the way to go.
Those UMD disks arent cheaper because thats another format u have to pay for. The plastic alone on one of those UMD disk covers would make a few flash cartridges.
Xboxlenny some of the stuff you say literally makes me laugh out load. A piece of plastic is cheaper than flash memory. Fact.
I’m not at all interested in the PSP, which makes me hate Square and Konami even more for putting out games for it I MUST own; The two Star Ocean remakes and Silent Hill: Origins.
I don’t forsee much use for the system beyond those except maybe as a makeshift MP3 player, but yet I’m still trying to track down a used one in my price range. Just goes to show you, any system can become a must-have if the right game is on it.
Seriously, to blame UMD for the lackluster sales of PSP games is blatantly stupid. It’s the games themselfes for the most part. There simply ought to be better games.
UMD load times aren’t so much of an issue, and never really were that bad. Besides, the new PSP model UMD cache takes care of some load time issues.
Furthermore, Sony *can’t* just drop UMDs! They just can’t. The PSP is designed to use UMDs for christs sake. If I had a penny for every analyst who keeps complaining about the evil UMD I would be rich soon. Don’t stop!