Sony is going to lose big on the PS3, way to soon to have been adding Blu-Ray. It should have been left off the first generation.
These consoles coming up will have a 5-7 year shelf life.
5-7 years is WAY MORE than enough time for a nice, easy, "affordable" mass market penetration that BR will enjoy via the PS3 and that HD-DVD is missing the boat on.
No doubt, they will break, and need replacing at that point Sony could replace and for a fraction more dough add better components, etc.
Just my 2 cents
I have no idea how you could come to this conclusion.
Easy, mass market penetration of Blu-Ray virtually assures its adoption.
At the very least, it gets a nice boost like DVD did back in 2000 with the PS2's launch and mass market penetration. DVD was rolling along nicely by 2000, but the PS2's advent really helped push it over the top, especially with first timers and folks on a limited budget who wanted to finally take their first taste of DVD.
But this is even more critical. This is right near the beginning of BR's life. The PS3 will be far more critical than the PS2 was for DVD.
I can't begin to tell you how many NON gamers already have spots on their racks cleared for a PS3.
Even if that thing costs $500 at launch, most AV and HT buffs will chuckle with glee as they glady pay $500 for a first generation, dual HDMI, 1080p BR player! It's a bargain!
As far as everyone else goes:
If Sony handles the PS3 launch more or less like the PSP's, where you have a decent selection of games and Blu-Ray movies, I really can't see where they can go wrong.
Make sure the BR software is affordable and well available and prominently marketed like the PSP UMD software has been since day one and there's really no way to go wrong.
Let me show you a few recent news items. Keep in mind that this is ever changing almost every day, and you can go to virtually any AV or HT magazine or website to keep up with it.
The good news and momentum continue to roll on for Blu-Ray, while HD-DVD, at best, has hit a stand still. This really isn't even close now, when you look at all the facts.
I think HD-DVD is already finished, but they're going to hold on for a while.
It's in everyone's best interest that we don't have a format war and that the best of both worlds gets rolled up into one awesome format we can all enjoy. I think BR comes a lot closer to that mark, so if they "win, and the HD-DVD camp finally gives up this charade and everyone sits down together...the sooner, the better!
From Video Business
HD DVD launch off for Q4 2005
As Toshiba delays hardware production
By Paul Sweeting 9/1/2005
SEPT. 1 | After weeks of hoping against hope, Toshiba is backing away from its plans to launch the HD DVD format in the U.S. this year.
In e-mails to its U.S. studio partners Thursday, the hardware maker said it was considering a “re-timing” of the format’s introduction for sometime next year to ensure maximum software and retail support.
“We are now in talks with Hollywood studios and large-scale retailers to seek the most effective timing of the launch and best way to launch,” the company said in a statement issued to Japanese media outlets. “The majority [of HD DVD companies] prefer a large-scale launch, rather than a gradual launch.”
A spokesman for the HD DVD Promotion Group in the U.S. said the issue is one of coordinating plans rather than any problems in getting the hardware or software ready for launch.
“The key issue is, when we launch, all of our partners, including the studios, retailers, authoring houses and everyone else, we all agree we want to do it with a big bang. And that just takes time,” the spokesman, Mark Knox, said. Knox also is a consultant to Toshiba.
Until this week, Toshiba had been telling reporters that at least a small number of players would arrive this year, with at least limited software support. Knox said Thursday that many specialty electronics retailers were anxious to demo the format for their customers this year and that it could still happen if software becomes available.
What impact the delay will have on the ongoing battle with rival format Blu-ray Disc was not immediately clear.
Last month, representatives from the Blu-ray camp said they hoped that any delay in the launch of HD DVD could be used for further efforts to agree on a single, unified format.
Warner Home Video officials said at the time that finding a compromise on a single format was more important that proceeding quickly with a launch of HD DVD.
Warner is one of three studios that has previously vowed to support HD DVD. Paramount Home Entertainment and NBC/Universal Studios Home Entertainment are the others.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, all three said proceeding with a launch this year was imperative to gain a competitive advantage in the market over Blu-ray, which is not expected to be introduced here until the middle of 2006.
Officials at the three studios were not immediately available at press time to comment on Toshiba’s e-mails or statement.
Then you can add these:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143373 Check out this article, they claim TDK has developed a coating for Blue-Ray disk’s sahat can withstand an attack from a screwdriver.
http://news.com.com/Try%20scratching%20this%20DVD/2100-1041_3-5455621.html http://www.projectorcentral.com/hddvd_bluray.htm Here are some more facts about HD-DVD's growing woes and dubious standing:
Several studios affiliated with HD DVD had intended to release movies in that format, but in recent weeks had drawn back from those plans without an explanation. Paramount dumped its plans to release HD DVD movies this year, and Universal scaled back the number of titles it planned to release.
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050901ToshibaBlinksOnHDDVDRollout.html
Also add Nero to the growing list of blu-ray,
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6795.cfm
On the other hand, here's more good news for BR. More facts:
Universal has also just joined the Blu-ray disk association group.
They have not jumped ship from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray yet but this could indicate they are thinking about it. That would only leave New Line, And Paramount on board for HD-DVD.
Do you think they will stay with HD-DVD if 80% of the industry is behind Blu-Ray? NOPE!
They're one of many fence sitters and companies with their fingers in the breeze. The HD-DVD consortium is hardly a tight knit alliance.
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/ HD-DVD supporters:
Current supporters of HD-DVD include Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, and Microsoft,
And?.... and?...
LOL, that's it! What a joke.
But the news gets even worse:
MS has their finger in the breeze right now to see which way the wind will blow, then they will follow suit. Not including HD-DVD on the Xbox360 is very telling and a huge, missed oppurtunity for cheap, easy, mass market penetration for HD-DVD.
Honestly, how many of those companies inspire confidence and make your toes tingle? Not me! There's a damned good reason MS didn't bother to include HD-DVD on its forthcoming Xbox360: They don't have enough confidence in the format to bother investing in it!
As for the rest of these HD-DVD consortium members:
Toshiba and Sanyo? Yuck. How do you spell "sub-par?"
I haven't touched any of their products for years, myself, except MS for Windows and Xbox. I'd say their the "best" company on that list, along with NEC on occasion.
Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp did us all a favor by backing out of launching that this year. Truly.
I can just imagine what the numerous complaint and bug threads in various DVD player forums would look like if these things had made it out this year.
in addition to New Line Cinema, Paramount, Universal, Time-Warner, and the official approval of the DVD Forum.
Heh. That's it?
Contrast this with:
Blu-Ray Supporters:
Current support for Blu-Ray includes PC makers Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony, and electronics giants Hitachi, LG, Mitsubishi Electric, Matsushita/Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, and Thomson. (And Nero, see earlier post.)
Already a night and day difference, and this list continues to grow. Pick up the latest WSR or Home Theater Magazine and just watch it keep on rolling.
Add to this the support by movie studios such as Columbia TriStar, Sony Pictures and MGM (all three owned by Sony), 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment, and Disney, as well as video game makers Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games, and the bastion of support for Blu-Ray looks formidable indeed.
Night and day difference. BR is smokin' already with this kind of power and momentum behind it. How can they go wrong?
You KNOW some of those other studios are going to jump over in due time. They're already VASTLY outnumbered and outgunned by the BR camp, as is. It's not even close!
I've just brought forth a small, recent sampling of the substantial and factual material out there on this subject. It's growing and changing day by day.
From there, you can go to cnnfn.com or any business news site of your choice and put in key company names or other hot words into their search engines and do plenty of reading on your own to catch up.
COMMENTARY Now, given all this, let me apply a little deductive logic and reasoning of my own:
- MS WAS planning on incorporating HD-DVD into their Xbox360, and could have...but then they backed out of it. I wonder why that is? Surely their buddies in the HD-DVD consoritum, namely Toshiba, would have been happy to help them with R&D and other costs to get an affordable HD-DVD drive on the Xbx360.
Never happened.
Consequence: An easy, inexpensive, broad user base COULD HAVE been exposed to HD-DVD and now this is DENIED. No 2005 rollout whatsoever. No easy mass market penetration via the Xbox 360.
It's over.
HD-DVD COULD HAVE been the first out of the gate in 2005 and started establishing a user base MONTHS ahead of Sony and BR as soon as this November of 2005.
The HD-DVD Titanic has hit the ice and it's going down fast. It couldn't be more obvious.
Blu-Ray's momentum is growing exponentially and there's no reason to believe, at this point, that this trend won't continue. It will.
Here's why:
- Sony will launch PS3 at NO MORE than $500, at most, for all the obvious reasons, and BR will get a nice, easy, broad exposure and infiltration into a ever growing user base, just as DVD did before it via the PS2. There's no factual or concrete reason to believe that price will be more than $500 IF YOU ADJUST FOR INFLATION.
Since BR belongs to Sony anyways, they probably will just suck up R&D costs and cut some corners, so $500 is probably an overreach for price. So much the better.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/643/643170p1.htmlThat's a link to an excellent article that shows every game console that's ever launched and shows a chart comparing their original launch price to what they would cost now if they launched in 2005.
Given that chart, $500 would definitely be pushing that glass ceiling with gamers, but it's not out of the question IF Sony holds to their suggested and tenative PS3 specs like: CELL, dual HDMI, 1080p, BR, and so on. These things aren't cheap!
People will trade in whatever they have to make credit card payements, like they always do, to cover costs. The PS3 will be a huge hit. You can count on it!
CONCLUSION:Blu-Ray is WELL on its way to winning. Some would argue that it already has won except for the signatures on the papers.
History will repeat itself, as it did for DVD.
It's the same cycle of easy infiltration and adoption that DVD enjoyed when the PS2 launched. It's the same exact thing all over again. DVD was al;ready enjoying a nice, mass adoption, but the PS2 rolled out and became a lot of people's first DVD player ever.
In this case, the PS3 will have an even more vital role in the adoption of BR, since it's coming out so early in the ballgame.
The PS3 will almost certainly be a huge reason why BR will ultimately be adopted as the successor format to DVD, and rightfully so. It IS the better format.
It's all about the games. Sony already has the licenses and third party stacked to the moon, carrying over from the PS2 and PS1's glowing success.
This will just be the cherry on top for them. All they have to do is copy their own "UMD/PSP" strategy for BR movies, along with the awesome PS3 games you know they're going to have, and simply put: They can't fail.
The facts speak for themselves. Everything I've just posted is the tip of much larger, and ever growing iceburg: The writing is on the wall for HD-DVD. The PS3's launch and mass market penetration will be the final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD.
ADDENDUM:The best thing the HD-DVD coalition could do for everyone, at this point, would be to end the charade, roll their sleeves up, and come back to the negotiating table, while there still IS any support on the HD-DVD side at all.
Fight nasty, do whatever you have to do, but the last thing anyone wants is a so-called format war. And frankly speaking: There won't be a format war simply because BR already has the HD-DVD side well outmatched and outgunned.
Whatever it takes. No one should be allowed to walk away from that negotiating table without coming to a solution and an agreed upon format.
