DailyTech reported yesterday that Sony had all but given up on its UMD efforts with the release of an equally (if not more) expensive “MemoryStick Entertainment Pack." Today, there are rumors that Target is pulling UMD movies from its store shelves altogether.

The reports come from Kotaku and they cite sources within the company as providing them with the information. According to the sources, Sony’s UMDs are being quickly pulled and shipped back  to Target headquarters to presumably restock Target.com's UMD inventory.

I don't know how Sony thought that they would be able to push UMD on PSP owners in the first place. It's not like the PSP has been a complete smash hit, so widespread penetration just is not there. There's also the issue with high UMD price tags and no bonus features that one would expect from a standard DVD release. Also, many tech-savvy PSP owners already rip their DVD movies to MemorySticks so what’s the point? If the comments from yesterday's MemoryStick Entertainment Pack article are any indication, it looks as though Sony may have yet another failure on its hands when it comes to bringing movies to the PSP.