Sony's Format curse continues!....

They were all (that I recall) strictly movie adverts, so most likely not done by retailers, and most likely by studios owned, or in close collusion with Sony.

Anyway my point was precisely that Sony should have either have educated the public more about this new format, if they were serious about its success...or simply called the damn thing the "PSP disc" or somesuch.

How successful was the format in Japan?

We don't get info on Japanese movie sales. We do get the game sales, and you can see them on the ELSPA site.

But I can't imagine that the UMD has been successful as a movie format anywhere. Why would anyone pay extra for a lower resolution movie, which they can't play on any other device when they can just rip their DVD to Memory Stick?

it was a joke from the start really, "Universal Media Disc!"
....then they go and slap a region code on it!?...

Well it was meant to be read as universal-media disc - i.e. a disc that can hold any media. Not universal media-disc - i.e. a media disc with universal applications.

The region codes are mandated by the movie publishers, of which Sony Pictures is one of course, so they are to blame for the non-universality of the media disc.

I'd hardly call the region locking in DVDs "versatile" either, but that's one of the names for the format.

so wot ur saying is....im wrong,...no sorry i'm right,...no your wrong,....sorry your right.... thanx

Glad I could clear it up for you :-)

What I was trying to say is that the name is just the name and has no bearing on how the media works.

Why isn't the PSP called the Portable Playstation? Because PPS is a s**te contraction. It's all about the name and the marketing. UMD sounds nice even if Universal Media Disc doesn't and is ambiguous.

Strange then, that they didn't use the acronym for "Could be Used for Numerous Things."