My only biff with the UMD is storage space, and while I think the biggest game to date is 1.2 gb's there is still a lot of games coming out. What I would really wanna see is and rpg like radiant mythology or the starocean type come out with a massive rpgs like 2 umds big. I'm sure they could eventually make an upgraded UMD which can hod more. Until then though I don't see much wrong with the UMD mem sticks would just basically make piracy way more prevalent then it already is.

There is many bigger than 1.2gb as I dumped 50 cent bulletbroof and it is 1.5gb. Is there some type of umd-rw out there somewhere in production

As if Sony would ever ditch one of their own proprietary storage formats, there up to something like 6 Proprietary Memory Stick formats around, then they are forcing BluRay on people with PS3. I think Sony keep coming out with these schemes in the hopes that one of them will eventually catch on main stream. I don't see it likely that they will ever lock onto a standard like CompactFlash or SD (even those are proprietary, although the CF much less so). We really need a standard flash system, probably the best idea would be to use USB except modify it to make it smaller like these systems http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/102/C3497/ & http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/01/pretec_idisk_diamond/ and modify the internal socket on the unit to remove the extra space normally associated with USB.

I don't really have to much of a problem with UMD though since I can't see any viable alternatives for a portable gaming device with a similar amount of storage space for a viable price. 2GB of flash is about $80 (AUD) currently so for an equivalent to the PSP's storage on flash they would be paying that much just for the production costs of the cart. Granted it doesn't need read/write and it doesn't need to be insanely fast (although playing movies from it won't work too well) so maybe $30 (AUD) but thats still fairly expensive production costs over a UMD that probably costs a few $ to make.

I doubt there is a much better alternative, downloading might sound nice but a lot of people don't have the bandwidth.

All of Australia and the UK would probably be fairly left out since there are download caps of a few GB on most plans.

Maybe a better solution would be to have a system so that gamestores can upload the games to PSPs, but I would want a physical copy of anything I buy in case my stick dies or gets lost. Official allowing copying of the game from UMD to MS would have the PSP connect to the internet and activate the game but then you can still play from the UMD on another system.

If you just want to reduce seek time you could copy the game to the MS but still check the UMD as an antipiracy thing like how most PC games work. Maybe a cache could be used, you could copy from the UMD to MS in the background while playing the game, so the next level could be loaded while your playing the first one. Hopefully it wouldn't use to much CPU since its coming from a slow UMD.

BluRay isn't a proprietary Sony format. Although they had a large hand in it, so did many other companies. There are more companies behind BD than behind HD-DVD.

Having said that, UMD is clearly Sony-only. However, if you're going to do a disc for a portable, it's not a bad design. Sony likes disc media - CD, DVD, and BD. It only makes sense they'd have some disc format for the PSP. People would have preferred mini-DVD, but that's only because it would have made "backups" easier. :wink:

Hate to burst your bubble there chilly, but Sony owns the rights to bluray and make it where any company that wants to use it has to pay them for every disk made and to have the equipment to play bluray disks. I did alot of research on this subject and even talked to a few sony reps that I worked with.

From the Bluray web site:

You don't pay Sony, you pay the association who then pays all the members due money from patents and such. You should probably check out their web page.

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/

If you have something that states otherwise and has evidence to back it up (not just whacked out conspiracy rants), I'd like the URLs. :smile:

I was almost certain too that sony at least owned or bought out the rights to blue-ray.

Blu-ray is developed by Sony, but is supported by other major companies. Just like how HD-DVD is developed by Toshiba and NEC but is also supported by Microsoft, Panasonic, Intel etc.

And the reason why UMD isnt going to be the next Mini-Disc is because it sold 'lots' more.

CDs were simple. You pretty much just paid Philips. Modern hidef discs are not simple, and many companies hold patents on quite a few of the "pieces" that make up the disc - from the physical construction, the encoding of the data, the filesystem used, to the formats of the data stored on the disc. If I remember correctly, Sony holds a couple patents on part of the physical construction of the disc, and on one of the data formats. Everything else belongs to other companies who are working together with Sony on this.