Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Sony has spent a few decades pushing proprietary formats, including Memory Stick, Mini Disc, UMD, Betamax and so forth.
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Memory Stick-- at the time it came out, it was one of the (physically) smallest types of flash memory, thus able to fit in more compact devices than Compact Flash or Smart Media.
Mini Disc was (possibly still is) wildly popular in many parts of the world (just not the US),
UMD-- I'm not a gamer, but I don't know about other practical solutions for storing that amount of data on a portable gaming system for a reasonable price at the time. I doubt carts could be made with the same capacity for the same price or less. And broadband internet wasn't nearly as common then as now, so downloads were less feasible (which also goes back to the much higher price of portable internal storage back then.)
Betamax was a superior format to VHS, the problem was that it was more expensive.