14 DAY TRIAL // The console of the season seems to be the revamped PS3, featuring 40GB of storage space and lacking 2 USB ports, backwards compatibility with PS2 games, SACD playback and memory stick card readers. You might be wondering: what's the deal with that SACD format? Well, at the peak of the Audio CD's ascension, Sony thought that it would be a better idea to release a totally incompatible format, that's a little bit better than the average CD. And so SACD was born...
Of course this format is dead right now, as it's the DVD Audio, since they can't compete with the many-year-old standard CD. The new PS3 shows the useless features of the original version, by removing them and staying true to the public's demands. Sony only has two other things left to do, before becoming everyone's favorite company again. Both of the two tasks involve cutting support for useless formats: Blu-ray and UMD. They're obviously ways to cash in more for the Japanese hardware giant and probably the cause of PSP and PS3 piracy.
Who buys UMD disks when their console supports memory sticks with up to 4GB storage space? Also, running the UMDs takes more time and drains the PSP's battery, so there's really no advantage of this format. Let's not forget that they're probably the most damageable disks on the market... And what's the deal with Blu-ray? I know that those people obsessed with super high definition and image quality have their reasons to love this format, but it's as useless as the SACD, since the HD-DVD is basically the same thing, but it's compatible with more devices.
However I don't see the UMD and Blu-ray dying in the next year or so, specially the second one that has become the standard for all PS3 titles.