When the portable game machine Sony PSP was launched it introduced a new mini-size optical disc format, the UMD. Along with games, Sony's ambitious plan was to also distribute movie content on the UMD format. It was not hard to speculate that the UMD movie format would have a hard time succeeding, and now it seems that the format is already losing grip - if it ever had any. But Sony has a backup plan: Now they are selling movies on 1GB and 2GB MemorySticks.

The reason for failure of UMD has been linked to high prices in comparison to standard DVD movies, slow turn around for new releases and the lack of bonus features on the disc due to limited disk space. Large retailers like Wal-Mart (and more recently Target) have backed off on large-scale promotion of UMD titles and may even stop selling them altogether.

Source: DailyTech