... playstation-disorder.com, (c) 2006 ...

Sony talked about it a while ago, now customers in the US can actually buy them: movie DVDs with digital copies that play on PSP as well as PS3 and PC. After the first test of that concept through Resident Evil: Extinction in January, 6 additional movies are available all through Walmart, namely Blood & Chocolate, Bobby Z, The Contractor, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Wind Chill. As you can see this is not a high profile lineup but is for Sony another test ballon for the whole concept.

Anyway, looking at the limitations of that new distribution model, it seems highly unlikely that customers are going to love this. Even though there is a copy of the respective movie on disc, transferable via a standard PC, you have to go online with a registration code to check if the DRM protected file is still playable, as the playback of those movies is time limited.

Once again, the industry is trying to make life much harder for consumers through their solutions, while there are much more easy to use "illegal" options out there. As long as this is the case the industry is not going to win that fight. The music as well as the film industry needs to understand that they are no longer selling a physical product anymore, but rather a service. And services are really difficult to copy. It seems to be very difficult for them to let the old business model go and adopt the new one to compensate for that. I probably give this 5 more years and the industry will be there if they like it or not.