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With the recent PSP firmware upgrade, a rather major addition has received rather suppressed acclaim. This refers of course, to the addition of an internet browser, or, as Sony's official release notes rather nonchalantly put it, "An internet browser has been added". Not only have Sony given the PSP user base what it desires, but the addition of such a prolific universal data reader opens up the PSP to much more widespread and diverse usage.
Specifically in UMD terms, its remit expands from gaming, video, and music on the move, to the possibility of a universally accepted medium for storing large amounts of data for easy, physical platform independent access. The key to this in terms of revenue generation of course, would be the ability for UMD to store commercial data on one of the most commonly used and easy manipulated formats available -- any of those found on the web. Imagine a commercial encyclopaedia available on UMD? Or how about a series of books? Of course you may wonder why an internet browser would not source this kind of data easily and directly from the net over wireless. This of course will be the case, however despite the advances and saturation of wireless technology, it will be some time before every single PSP operated on the planet is within coverage of a Wi-Fi. This is far from a prediction that UMD will be the base for the portability of such arbitrary data, especially not with 2Gb (and +) data memory sticks available in such abundance. However, many were sceptical about the projected longevity of UMD video before a single PSP was sold. It's commercial viability to Hollywood has no doubt been a cornerstone of the surprising sales figures to date, so maybe the same can be applied here. |
UMD Blog 
