Forget UMD-RW, It's All About Memory Sticks

Sometimes though, you’ll hear people clamor for a UMD-RW (Read/Write) disc and a way to burn their own UMDs. That, my friends, is missing the point. No one really wants UMD-RW and it’s not going to happen. I’ll tell you why.

First off, UMD is designed for the content provider, not the consumer. It’s all about putting movie and game studios at ease in terms of releasing content for this new platform. There’s currently no way to pirate the content of these disks and that’s the whole idea. If a UMD burner came out, that sense of security would vanish and with it a lot of content for the PSP.

So forget about a UMD burner. I don’t see it happening. Instead, it’s all about memory sticks.

Once you get a PSP you’ll realize that the Memory Stick is just as accessible as the UMD. It’s not just for storing your saved games. It’s for your music and photos and, yes, movies. If Sony is smart, they’ll work to provide high capacity, low cost Memory Sticks (there’s already been some Sony execs voicing the need for this) and they’ll expand Sony Connect to include movie downloads. Sony will also need to work on better desktop software for managing your photos and music and movie and synching them with the PSP, but its very possible.

So IMHO the future of movies on the PSP is the memory stick, not the UMD. Games will remain on the UMD and there will still be a collection of movies for UMD, but the real potential is a Sony Connect service that provides music and movies for download.

Besides, a UMD is only 1.8 GB. That’s probably going to stay pretty static while Memory Stick capacity will increase. As soon as an affordable 2 GB memory stick is on the market, there would be absolutely no reason for a UMD burner.