Sunday, Aug 17, 2008
I wish I worked in a marketing department for major electronics manufacturers, more specifically Sony as I am sure my ideas would net them huge profits. I just read an article in regards to their UMD business. In case you do not know, UMD disks are the mini DVD's used to store movies and play games on the PSP gaming device. It wa a disastrous failure for a couple of reasons. The biggest culprit was the 10-15$ price premium over regular DVD offerings which had all the extra content that is just not possible to put on a UMD. So in essence, it was a mini DVD minus all the bonus features for a higher price of a standard edition DVD with all the extras. And the UMD was only playable on PSP's. Were I in charge of marketing and development for that platform firstly, to increase the appeal of UMD as a potential buying option, I would make it so it played on standard DVD players also. Now, in an effort to make sure the PSP was the focal platform of playing the UMD's and not just buying a UMD and playing it on a DVD player instead of the device, I would make it so UMD's could only be played on Sony branded DVD players. To further the appeal of the UMD as the potential equal of DVD's, I would have instituted from the beginning, something just recently made capable on the UMD, the ability to hook the UMD player to a television and play content on the PSP on a TV. UMD support has been ended from all major motion picture studios with the exception of Sony of course and now they are retooling the UMD for a second potential revival of the format. Will any of the studios jump onboard again or will the UMD movie remain a niche? I say niche.
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