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UMD

UMD is an abbreviation for "Universal Media Disc," a media format created and used by Sony. While Sony may have initially planned to use it for many devices, it's only used in the PlayStation Portable video game system.

It's the first optical disc format used by a mainstream portable gaming system, storing 1.7 gigabytes of data – a little over three times as much as a CD, but about a third as much as a DVD. UMD discs with PSP games are sold in stores, and for a while, movie discs were available too.

The format has not been quite the success Sony had hoped for. It never built up steam as a video format, and while it's still the primary format for new PSP games, most analysts speculate that Sony's next portable console will abandon UMD in favor of digital downloads.

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