Well, it finally happened: a UMD disc got scewed up.

Good lord, these things are in no way durable. A piece of dirt got into my GTA: Liberty City Stories disc a few weeks ago, and the damn thing couldn't run. Tried everything: From using Q-Tips to clean the surface of the disc, to psycially taking out the disc and cleaning it with various disc cleaning substances, etc. You know, I honestly don't understand why they couldn't make the damn things stay together once you take it apart and put it back together (only way is a hot glue gun).

 

meh, is easy to clean, put your finger on the metal part of the disc, and do a circular motion, it will start to move little by little, get to the part where the dirt is and then use a cloth like the one that came with the system to clean it, just go up/down and it should clean it.

 

Exactly what I did, and it didn't work. I also knew it was the UMD disc, because it worked just fine with Metal Gear Acid.

 

I agree, I had to spend a lot of cash to get my Class 1 Clean room ready to play Sony stuff without a glitch.

Sony's taking the piss as usual but my best advice: don't eat while manipulating your UMDs and always keep them in the box when not used.

I don't understand why they didn't use the same protectection shield as Minidisc. Maybe the reason for the mild success of MiniDisc is that nobody could ever scratch or damage these disc. Now Sony's policy seems to be, don't make it last we need your money again. Earlier this year I bought a Sony T1 Digital Camera for my folks it lasted 3 months and Sony said fuck for repair as according to them the camera had rusted inside and it was our fault. I then discovered from several trusted retail sources that a lot of people had the same problem but Sony is denying that there is a flaw in their design. A little too much humidity in the air and you're camera is good to go to heaven.

Though I have to say I am very satisfied with my PSP but not at all with my PS2, it's like starting a very old car in the morning.
Sabre

 

this kind of reminds me the old day when we have 8" & 5.25" floppy disk...
yes it was really floppy and you can bent like origami if you let a little kid to play with it...

 

Sony build quality is horrendous. period.

The only Sony products i have are: PS1, PS2, 29' Wega TV (that sometimes don't recognize S-Video signal), 15' Monitor (that sometimes turn on and off without reason).

And i only have PS1 and PS2 because of the games. I was planning to get an Xbox, but i had to drop the idea. I'm not gonna buy a console for just 8 games. Maybe i'll get the 360, if it plays those 8 games. Till now, not all of them are playable.

 

I've had a UMD problem a while when I had my first PSP. I figured out the problem; the plastic was pushing down on the disc itself, so I had to pull it up somehow.

Now, I'm really debating if I should trade my minty PSP for a Nintendo DS. All the talk over DS games is really giving me some interest in this console. As long as Mario Kart DS is as good as or even better than Mario Kart 64, I'll get a DS...

 

HeHe, the funny part is, i have a prototype UMD with a little spring loaded window cover. They were scraped due to cost... nice.

The UMD cases are held together with a sonic weld (basicly they used sound to vibrate the plasitc so hard it fused together). If you crack one open, you're going to have a hellova time getting it back together. I don't remember what the inner spindle is made out of, it looks like tin or aluminum. I've been told by official sources that you're supposed to run them under the faucet to clean them... I don't know if i recomend that. I keep all of my UMDs in an Altoids tin.

 

Any chance you can get us picturesof the prototype UMD?

 

Man i bought a DS and i can't wait to give my PSP away. SEriously I haven't played it since march. I do have one guy on the hook for my psp he is trading me his car lease for it.

 

I have 2 UMD's with duff cases, my Metal Gear Ac!d seam cracked, so it's half hanging open, and my Hot Shots Golf game, the clear disk keeps popping out of the hole, sadly the disc side, so I have to keep checking it to make sure it doesn't shred the UMD's surface.

 

They arn't even comparable. DS not only trumps 64s gameplay in possibly every way, It also has re-made n64 levels (in its retro cup) in case you happend to like them specificly.

(PS: sot of off subject, but Animal Crossing: Wild World runs at like 20fps, whats up with that!?)

 

If they're not imports you should be able to return them to Sony for new ones. Check the warranty slip in the case.

Stone

 

Ouch, sorry to hear that your discs are getting screwed up. I recognized it from the beginning that the UMD's were going to have problems with dirt. It's a real shame that sony didn't go with a Mini Disc style case instead of the poor design of the UMD cases. Something that is going to be thrown in backpacks, carried around in peoples pockets, and exposed to a lot of dirty environments should definitely have a shield over the read area... you would have thought that would have made sense to them anyways.

 

Sadly they are, and it's not worth the postage to send them back to GSL Heavy Industries.

 

I think the PSP or the PS2 is not a toy like the GBA or the GameCube. Nintendo's systems are built for kids. you can throw these things onto a wall and they will work after doing it.

But Sony's consoles are not toys. they're not built for children's hands and you have to be careful with it. it's highly sensitive electronic equipment.

sony is like a speed bike from Tour de france - it's fast. but if you go offroad, you will fail.
nintendo is like a mountain bike - it's solid and you can use it nearly everywhere. but it's not the fastest.

 

but not many adults live in class 1 clean room/building either.
Maybe SONY designers are though...

 

sony designs its products to fail. the company was in massive amount of trouble, its still in a huge amount of trouble. and now they are in the process of changing the entire way they do business. because of the success of the ipod and the failure of the psp, sony had to scrap the designs for the next psp and start over. psp or ps_? future releases you could see an increase of quality or a decrease...my bet is, it will all be crap. allready sony has planned more than 3 different new revisions of the psp to be released. each one looking to rival the ipod. so the lifespan of the current psp could be relatively short...the fact that the games dont physically last, might be part of their plan....evil plan.

one of the problems with the umd's is that they are difficult to resurface, they get scratched and your fucked.

if ProgrammingAce does have a prototype with a spring loaded window cover, i wonder if any store bought psp can read it. and if it can then a third party could possibly release replacement cases with the window covers that snap on around the disc.

 

you should tell that SONY


back to topic: maybe Sony should use a caddy like those from iomegas zip disks (only smaller). these are very stable. but I think it would be too expensive for sony. It's all about the money