[Infowarrior] - PSP UMD losing H'wood game

[Richard Forno]

UMD losing H'wood game

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/film/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id
=1002274591

By Thomas K. Arnold

Exactly a year after it was launched in the U.S., the Sony PlayStation
Portable's days as a hand-held movie-viewing device might be numbered.

Disappointing sales have slowed the flow of movies on the proprietary
Universal Media Disc to a mere trickle. At least two major studios have
completely stopped releasing movies on UMD, while others are either toying
with the idea or drastically cutting back.

And retailers also are shrinking the amount of shelf space they've been
devoting to UMD movies, amid talk that Wal-Mart is about to dump the
category entirely.

Wal-Mart representative Jolanda Stewart declined comment on reports that the
retailer is getting out of the UMD business. But studio sources say such a
move is imminent, and a check Wednesday of a Wal-Mart store in Santa Ana,
Calif., revealed a drastic shrinkage of UMD inventory. Several shelves of
movies in the PSP section were gone; all that remained were seven UMD titles
sitting bookshelf-style on the top of the PSP section, with no prices or
other information.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD
movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said
one high-ranking exec: "It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony
bomb -- like Blu-ray."

Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment also is said to be out of the UMD
business. "We continue to evaluate the PSP platform for each title, and if
it makes sense for business reasons and the target audience, we will release
them," spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone said. "Our focus right now is much more
aimed at HD at the moment, though."

A high-ranking executive was more blunt: "We are on hiatus with UMD," he
said. "Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No
one's even breaking even on them."

Also out of the UMD business is Image Entertainment, while other studios --
including 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home
Entertainment -- have drastically slashed release schedules.

"No one's watching movies on PSP," said the president of one of the six
major studios' home entertainment divisions. "It's a game player, period."

Observers speculate the studios released too many movies, too fast. Within
five months of the PSP's March 2005 launch, 239 movie and TV titles already
were either in the market or in the pipeline -- a significantly higher tally
than games, according to the DVD Release Report.

But while sales were initially strong -- two Sony Pictures titles even
crossed the 100,000-unit threshold after just two months -- the novelty
quickly wore off, observers say. The arrival last fall of Apple's video iPod
only hastened the PSP's decline as a movie-watching platform.

Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, was a big
believer in PSP as a movie-watching platform. He still is, even though he
concedes retail shelf space for UMD movies is on a sharp decline and his own
studio is being "more selective" in choosing movies for UMD release.

Feingold believes the PSP's biggest drawback as a movie-watching device was
the inability to connect the gadget to TV sets for big-screen viewing,
"which would have made it more compelling," as well as the inclusion of
memory stick capability.

"I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device
rather than purchasing," he said.

But next week, Sony Computer Entertainment executives will begin making the
rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to
connect to TV sets.

"We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation
capability that may include living-room or normal television playback," he
said.