Sony PlayStation Portable's days as a hand-held movie-viewing device might be numbered, according to Reuters, which reports that the flow of movies on Sony's Universal Media Disc format has slowed to a trickle in the USA and claims that two major studios have already stopped releasing movies on UMD.

Reuters also reckons that US shops are reducing the shelf space they give over to UMD movies and that the retailing giant Wal-Mart is set to drop UMD completely.

An unnamed 'high-ranking' executive of Universal Studios Home Entertainment is quoted as delivering this biting assessement of UMD, "It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb - like Blu-ray".

What the Reuters article doesn't mention, though, is the fact that Universal is a supporter of Blu-ray Disc's big rival HD DVD!

Tellingly, though, Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, is said to concede that the shelf space for UMD movies is on a sharp decline and that his studio is being "more selective" in choosing movies for UMD release.

And, Reuters says, Feingold has indentified the PSP's inability to feed video to TV sets as being a major negative, though one that will be addressed - with "Sony Computer Entertainment executives making the rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to connect to TV sets".

Check out the full Reuters article and let us know in the HEXUS.community how much credence you'd give to it.