Hollywood Studios pull back from PSP

[Paco]

and the world starts to make a little more sense again...

From Video Business Magazine:


Studios pull back from PSP

Movie releases slow as sales fall below expectations
By Jennifer Netherby and Susanne Ault 2/15/2006

FEB. 15 | With sales falling below expectations, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video are cutting back on movie releases for Sony’s PlayStation Portable handheld videogame player.

SPHE president Ben Feingold said the studio is temporarily scaling back the number of new release PSP movies it puts out due to weak performance. Sony last year was the first studio to release movies for the PSP and has been the biggest cheerleader of the format since its launch by the studio's parent company.

SPHE and sister unit Sony Computer plan to visit other studios in the next month to garner support for PSP by making an adapter that would allow the movies to be watched on a TV, making them more versatile for consumers.


“It would be a huge boost to [PSP movies] if we can arrange for the disc to play on TV players,” Feingold said.

In the meantime, Sony is adding to its comedy slate of releases on PSP with Monty Python titles and Not Another Teen Movie. Feingold said comedy has turned out to be the sweet spot on the format—the top-selling PSP release is 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s Napoleon Dynamite.

Paramount also has had some of the hottest releases on the format, with TV comedies Chappelle’s Show: Vol. 1 and Beavis & Butt-head—The Mike Judge Collection: Vol. 1.

However, the studio has no new PSP releases planned for the coming months, though a spokeswoman for the studio said they would continue to look at releasing select films on PSP.

Top PSP movie performers generally sell more than 100,000 units, though average release sales are closer to 40,000 to 50,000 units, according to industry sources.

Some have reasoned that sales might have slowed recently because of a shortage of new titles in the last month and because users might be copying films, albeit illegally, from DVDs onto a memory chip that PSPs can read.

Sony is hoping to combat online piracy starting in March when it begins selling movies online through its Connect digital media store. Users will be able to download movies from Connect and watch them on a PSP without a disc.

Warner, which only began releasing movies in the format in November, pulled six planned PSP titles including Goodfellas from its slate of releases previously set for an April to June rollout.

"We are re-evaluating our position on any future releases at this time," said Jeff Baker, Warner senior VP and general manager of theatrical catalog. "We'll look at this on a case by case basis. We're disappointed with consumer demand at this time."

The studio moves come as retailers are said to be cutting out shelf space for PSP movies with hit-and-miss sales. Best Buy is primarily stocking new releases on PSP, one studio source said.

“The performance of [PSP movies] has been unstable since their inception,” said Virgin buyer Chris Anstey. “We continue to carry most new titles, and there is a modest demand for them, but there simply hasn't been a consistent growth of this new format to justify making more space for it. We have been encouraged by the results of a couple successful campaigns that we've featured to help promote them, but the overall impact of the format has still been nominal.”

Sources say retailers are being flooded with new disc SKUs and view underperforming PSP movies as an area for cutbacks with upcoming high-definition releases set to reach market in the coming months.

"With standard-definition, HD DVD, Blu-ray and PSP, all these formats take up space," said one source. "Consumers aren't going to buy three or four configurations of the same movie. Something has to give."

However, Sony’s Feingold said multiple SKUs aren’t likely to go away soon, with consumers preferring to watch movies on a variety of screen sizes.

“It’s the beginning of a time when multiple formats will become a mainstay in the video business,” Feingold said. “For retailers, having one product could be easier, but the reality is there’s going to be a proliferation whether the studios or retailers like it or not.”

Feingold said he doesn’t expect any retailers to cut out PSP movie sales altogether, with 6 million new hardware units expected to be sold.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, read about this, I saw it coming... I've heard that UMD movies aren't selling great (for instance, at my local gaming store at home they've been put behind the counter to free up space for better-selling stuff)... they did at first, but then people bought a few and realized how foolish it was to pay that much for a lesser version of a movie you could only watch on a small screen. :)

[The Former DMiller]

I was always curious how movies were selling on the PSP. Guess this explains it. Even if I had a PSP there is no way I would buy movies in a format I could only play on a small, portable screen.

[Great Rumbler]

I have no desire to buy an UMDs.

[Dark Jaguar]

I have a PSP myself and have no desire at all to buy UMD movies. In fact, I barely had a desire to accept one as a GIFT.

The fact of the matter is, they ARE lesser versions (due to the lesser memory capacity) which can only be shown to a single person at a time and if someone was to get a home player, it would still be a lesser version than the DVD alternative. The size and protective cover are pretty much inconsequential to most people.

And also, you can find DVD players a LOT more places than you can find UMD players. That alone will make up a lot of people's minds, based entirely on being able to bring it over to someone's house and play it.

And this is something that's a kicker: they HAVE portable DVD players. They aren't AS portable, but they have that compatibility with a better format which is a lot more pervasive. The UMD format offers nothing to people, and it is too soon after the VHS replacement. It would be like if, in 1994, Sony offered some really tiny pathetic version of a CD that was unplayable in normal CD players and could only be played on a single propriatary system.

Universal Media my arse (and I know that is a phrase that is meant to allude to some other aspect, but DVDs already HAVE the aspect of being able to store movies music and games all in one, and other things like useful programs too).

And this is a little aside only commenting on the poor design of this particular UMD, but when I select certain scenes, the thing glitches out because some of the scenes don't have a specific video segment attached to them and the screen just goes white until I move the cursor to some other selection.

[lazyfatbum]

from day one everyone knew this was going to fail, even the most extreme PSP supporters scratched their head at it. why didn't sony put an RCA hookup so you can connect to any monitor and watch the movie? Why didn't sony get in to television shows, like getting cheaper UMD's that have one or two episodes of family Guy or whatever? I guess even then it just seems dumb.

There is however a rumor that the PSP will be getting a few Gigs of flash memory in the near future. if this is true, they need to find a way to make the PSP in to a type of Vugo where you can recoord television through RCA or d/l the content. It doesn't help UMD's (stands for Ultimate Man Dick) but it would atleast offer somekind of actual 'multi-media' to the portable gaming system.

[A Black Falcon]

The problem with watching UMDs is as DJ said: Given the size limitation (1.5GB or whatever), it's an inferior version of the full 9GB per disc version. So even if it WAS ona TV, it'd be shorter, or lower resolution, and wouldn't have extras... so why would you want that version over the DVD? Yeah...

UMD movies aren't a horrible idea -- the PSP is there, so why not give the thing more options? But expecting them to actually be successful does seem kind of odd. I'd expect them to be a niche product for people in specific situations, or just people with too much money lying around...

Sony's focus on the movies points to the obvious problem in the PSP: the perception that it doesn't have many games worth getting. This focus on movies sure doesn't help Sony's case... and as much as they pretend that their videogame consoles aren't videogame consoles, they are. That's what they are judged by. Not their other multimedia functions. And the clear perception is that the PSP is lacking there.

Not that the PSP is a failure or anything, but UMD movies... they're only a step above GBA Video, and are no competition for DVDs, and people have recognized that.

[Geno]

The portability of the media is awesome. The fact that you can only play it on a small screen is not. And then again, who's going to go to the Grand Canyon to watch their favorite movie anyway? I think I'd rather be sitting comfortably in my chair watching it on my TV.

[Dark Jaguar]

Thing is, DVDs are already portable. I'd rather use a portable DVD player if I'm going to be watching a movie on the go anyway.

Not that the small screen of the PSP is that bad. When you hold it up to your face, it might as well be a TV screen in terms of percieved size.

[Geno]

It would be cool to have a portable DVD player. I just wish they were more affordable. My brother was lucky enough to get me an MP3 player for Christmas for just $20 on a short sale that the grocery store where we work was having. It's awesome. :D

[Dark Jaguar]

He was lucky enough to have the sheer HONOR of providing you with a gift was he?

[lazyfatbum]

ass.

the real future is in portable HUD's that are small and sleek and cover one eye with a transparent display. They already exist but they're too expensive now. Imagine something as sleek as the HUD from PD but with a small super sharp image reflected off a piece of clear plastic in front of your eye, and cost about 300 bucks. They could even make them stereoscopic and you could still see the world around you. It would be the ultimate display device for everything from cameras, PDA's, laptops, portable gaming, the possibilities are limitless, especially as we approach the wireless age. The game machine, the cell phone, the whatever, stays in your bag or your pocket and you only have to touch it to change its batteries. Like a bluetooth headset, yunno? The actual phone stays out of sight.

They also have the soft-laser method in development at a few places, where a safe laser carries the images that are shot directly in to your retina that makes you think the image is all around you. Again, way to expensive and even more far off, but it's eventually going to be the way we enjoy any portable gaming, movies or TV in the near future. The down-side to the retina-laser is that it completely destroys any out side visuals making portability an issue of safety and it might cause cancer eventually to the user. Other than that though it's pretty damn cool.

[Geno]

He was lucky enough to have the sheer HONOR of providing you with a gift was he?

Well, he was lucky enough to find them that cheap. He doesn't download music as much as I do though (and I'm a rather light downloader myself) and since Christmas was on the horizon, he bought it for me. So... yeah. I got him a gift card 'cause I didn't know what else to get him. In fact, I got almost everybody gift cards for Christmas. I'm just so damn lazy. But hey, they didn't mind. They were able to buy whatever they wanted.