UMD Region Coding to Ape That of DVD
Finally, those of you in Europe with Japanese PSPs can breathe a sigh of relief.
Sony's new PSP handheld is good for more than just games. The portable has been designed as a mobile media centre, giving you access to photos, video files, music and movies.
Bought Resident Evil: Apocalypse in Japan? You'llbe able to play it on your Euro PSP.
But while games have been confirmed to be playable on all machines, regardless of where they were bought, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has confirmed that it will be using the same region-encoding format used for DVDs for movies on UMD.
What this means is that prospective PSP importers in Europe hoping to buy domestically released UMD movies at the end of the year will be better off buying hardware from Japan instead of the US.
(Both Europe and Japan fall into DVD region 2, as opposed to region 1 for North America.)
Region coding of movies cuts down on the usefulness of the PSP as a traveller's movie player, as Japanese and Europeans visitors to North America will not be able to buy UMD movies and vice versa.
SPHE and 20th Century Fox have already confirmed that they will have nearly 25 movies available on UMD around the European launch of the PSP on 1 September.
There had been speculation about how much movies will cost, but this was killed off by SPHE's revelation last week that its new releases will retail for £19.99 while older movies will sell for £17.99.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games
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