This week Target stores in the US announced that they will no longer be displaying UMD movies in their stores, Best Buy and Wal-Mart also have plans to scale down the floor space that UMDs take up, and to make matters even more confusing Sony have said that they will start shipping movies on Memory Sticks.
Sony plan on releasing just a few Memory Stick Movies initially from their own Sony Pictures catalogue, these will include Hitch, S.W.A.T., The Grudge, or XXX: State of the Union. The movies will play in 240x320-pixel resolution, lower than the 480x272-pixel resolution PSPs are capable of, and will probably be shunned by users who already rip movies from DVD to their Memory Stick.
Sony also wouldn"t comment on the implications that Memory Stick movies had for the future of the UMD format. However, the rep did say that their introduction was primarily about giving more options to consumers. "We"re a universal entertainment company and we"re able to offer the consumer more choice," said the rep. "Bundling Sony content with Sony hardware is something we can offer that others can"t."