Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[hoho]

Really, i would expect them to be behind. Do you have some info on this? maybe i should try and dig myself instead of just "expecting"

I'm not going to search too much on china due to heavy filtering that's going on for any data released there but here's what wikipedia has to say about India:
The country ranks 142th in nominal GDP per capita and 127th in GDP per capita at PPP - behind Yemen, Nigeria and Sudan
The percentage of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of $1.25/day decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005
As of 2005, according to World Bank statistics, 75.6% of the population lives on less than $2 a day (PPP), while 41.6% of the population is living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 (PPP) per day
India's literacy rate is 64.8%


Not many consumers with that kind of economy I'd say. It should be quite similar in china, possibly worse. Also, piracy is pretty much the norm there so it's pretty unlikely that people would actually spend money on software/games there

 

[corduroygt]

I think its a bluray sour grapes thread because some people refuse to believe that DD will over take blurays and people don't care about losseless audio.

It will take over for rentals, not so certain for ownership. Look at the current sales where DVD/Blu-ray combined sales is 25-30 times more than DD sales, despite 100 million iOS capable devices and 100M + consoles, etc.

I bet you anything that in the united states netflix is streaming more movies per minute than bluray is selling movies per minute.

It's certainly not generating more revenue or profits. Netflix style streaming can only replace some TV channels, not actual new mainstream movies that people want to watch.

DD is a diffrent beat. New codecs come out that offer better compression and image quality.

Untrue. H264 is close to as good as you can get with compression of movies.

Right now its easy to say oh DD doesn't have this. but that wont be true forever. At one point digital download was 720p and now there is 1080p 5.1 movies on the zune market place for download .

Far more people buy blu-ray discs than HD movies on Zune, iTunes, PSN, etc. combined. The only DD that's popular is piracy.

 

[eastmen]

It will take over for rentals, not so certain for ownership. Look at the current sales where DVD/Blu-ray combined sales is 25-30 times more than DD sales, despite 100 million iOS capable devices and 100M + consoles, etc.

why are we combining bluray with dvd.

Bluray isn't doing as well as it should , they are bundling dvds and DD with almost every bluray out there. I just bought alice in wonderland for $12 at best buy and got the bluray , dvd and a DD and it was just released on top of it . It becomes hard to tell what anyone wants because stuidos are muddying the water to make an ageing distrubution system look better. Its hard to say how well DD is donig because when you buy a bluray not only do you get the bluray and dvd but you get DD also in a large number of cases

Bluray itself has to compete with DDand we can't look at dvd sales to predict what bluray will do because it a a completely diffrent market in 2012 vs in the early 2000s .

It's certainly not generating more revenue or profits. Netflix style streaming can only replace some TV channels, not actual new mainstream movies that people want to watch.

Untrue. H264 is close to as good as you can get with compression of movies.

There are already newer compression tech for movies

On2 VP8 is claiming to be 40% more efficent than h.264 and you still have options in mpeg 4 part 10 to increase compression while keeping image quality

Far more people buy blu-ray discs than HD movies on Zune, iTunes, PSN, etc. combined. The only DD that's popular is piracy.

You mean right now more people buy Bluray discs than HD movies on Zune , Itunes , PSN , etc but you fail to mention that many of those Bluray discs are actual DVD sales and many have DD included.

Your also assuming this is the way it will be from here on out

3 years ago Barnes and Noble sold more books than e-books. In august of 2010 their e-book market share was higher than its physical book share. nook owners spend 20% more than non nook owners .

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/barnes-noble-nook-e-book-sales-accelerating/38300

Its going to be even more lopsided coming up as the nook color is selling faster than the old nook ever did

 

[manux]

I don't think distribution is either or for next gen. I would bet that it will be multiple SKU's where one SKU definately is DD only. If this DD only SKU comes out at console launch or later would be anyones bet. The SKU with physical media might be flash, blu-ray, some other format. I bet the choice boils down to cost.

For flash I think the distribution media most likely would be up to 16GB capacity roms and pricing should be calculated accordingly. For blu-ray capacity can go up to 50GB. for 8-16GB rom sizes blu-ray should be plenty fast as game size would be similar as this gen and next gen could have 6x blu-ray drive being 3 times faster than this gen(again for same binary size...). For this rom size blu-ray also can use plenty of data duplication to avoid seeks times.

Sony probably is the only one who sees also dvd/blu-ray movies as moneymaking factor. But can other manufacturers give sony the advantage of saying "only dvd/blu-ray movie playing machine" slogan.

 

[manux]

I don't think distribution is either or for next gen. I would bet that it will be multiple SKU's where one SKU definately is DD only. If this DD only SKU comes out at console launch or later would be anyones bet. The SKU with physical media might be flash, blu-ray, some other format. I bet the choice boils down to cost.

For flash I think the distribution media most likely would be up to 16GB capacity roms and pricing should be calculated accordingly. For blu-ray capacity can go up to 50GB. for 8-16GB rom sizes blu-ray should be plenty fast as game size would be similar as this gen and next gen could have 6x blu-ray drive being 3 times faster than this gen(again for same binary size...). For this rom size blu-ray also can use plenty of data duplication to avoid seeks times.

Sony probably is the only one who sees also dvd/blu-ray movies as moneymaking factor. But can other manufacturers give sony the advantage of saying "only dvd/blu-ray movie playing machine" slogan. If blu-ray playback is "expensive" feature it could easily be a pay 5$ to enable playback/download client to take the expense away from manufacturer.

 

[eastmen]

I don't think distribution is either or for next gen. I would bet that it will be multiple SKU's where one SKU definately is DD only. If this DD only SKU comes out at console launch or later would be anyones bet. The SKU with physical media might be flash, blu-ray, some other format. I bet the choice boils down to cost.

The problem with DD is that it has to be all or nothing. If you try and split most will stick with what they know and the retailers will be able to pressure you to keep the same price points on dd as they are in the store and will pressure you into not having sales on older content so they can keep a used market.

For flash I think the distribution media most likely would be up to 16GB capacity roms and pricing should be calculated accordingly. For blu-ray capacity can go up to 50GB. for 8-16GB rom sizes blu-ray should be plenty fast as game size would be similar as this gen and next gen could have 6x blu-ray drive being 3 times faster than this gen(again for same binary size...). For this rom size blu-ray also can use plenty of data duplication to avoid seeks times.

Flash could go greater than 16GB each year they are able to put more GBs int he same mm2 . Bluray will be at 50GB and even though a x6 bluray drive is 3 times faster we are looking at 8-16 times the ram

Also 6x drive are not a constant read speed through the disc they are variable which means on some parts of the disc you might not see any speed increase over the 2x drive

Sony probably is the only one who sees also dvd/blu-ray movies as moneymaking factor. But can other manufacturers give sony the advantage of saying "only dvd/blu-ray movie playing machine" slogan. If blu-ray playback is "expensive" feature it could easily be a pay 5$ to enable playback/download client to take the expense away from manufacturer.

I doubt sony cares about bluray in a next gen system. If there is something better that they have their hands in they will move to it .

Bluray in the ps3 has done what sony wanted it to do , it became the next optical format for movies and being in the ps3 it has driven disc costs and drives down .

 

[aaronspink]

And you'd be wrong: (a quick search gives)

"New research from The Diffusion Group (TDG) shows that only 54 percent of all Wii owners have hooked up their console to the Internet, as opposed to 78 percent of all PS3 owners and 73 percent of all Xbox 360 owners."

And you would be comparing apples and oranges. There is a difference between having the capability to do something and actually doing something. I stand by my statement that <1% of current gen console owners don't have an internet connection.

 

[aaronspink]

More people buy Blu-ray movies than digital movies, HD and SD combined, and that's including the 100 million iOS devices and cable set top boxes, so you are wrong on that. I don't know if all of them can tell the difference, but they do care enough to choose blu-ray over digital.

Lets see your proof then. BR adoption is still extremely pathetic with DD ahead of it in any market I've heard of.

 

[aaronspink]

Really, i would expect them to be behind. Do you have some info on this? maybe i should try and dig myself instead of just "expecting"

The vast majority of the people in India and China cannot afford a $200 US gaming console. Those that can already have internet and are fairly well to do. Just look at the demographic breakdowns and average annual wage data. Both countries break down primarily as: Extremely rich, Upper income, and poor. Neither has a reasonably size middle class as a % basis.

 

[corduroygt]

3 years ago Barnes and Noble sold more books than e-books. In august of 2010 their e-book market share was higher than its physical book share. nook owners spend 20% more than non nook owners .

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/barnes-noble-nook-e-book-sales-accelerating/38300

Its going to be even more lopsided coming up as the nook color is selling faster than the old nook ever did

Who cares about Barnes and Noble's marketshare compared to others, let's look at the overall market, where ebooks are only 4% of all book sales:

http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm

 

[corduroygt]

Lets see your proof then. BR adoption is still extremely pathetic with DD ahead of it in any market I've heard of.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5711

According to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), Blu-ray software sales rose 68% in 2010, with $1.8 billion sales revenue. BD rentals were also up 24% in brick-and-mortar outlets.

Electronic sellthrough was particularly soft, contributing just $683 million to the home entertainment market (a growth of 15.7% year on year).

Before you say "but..but..but..it's from blu-ray.com", the numbers are from DEG.
Keep in mind that the DD content is SD + DD. If we add DVD to Blu-ray it becomes a rough beating, since you wouldn't be able to play DVD's in a DD/Flash box either.

For people who want to own movies, not only Blu-ray is outselling digital, it's also growing at a faster pace.
What's pathetic is the attempts to downplay Blu-ray consistently on here. HD DVD sour grapes indeed.

 

[eastmen]

Who cares about Barnes and Noble's marketshare compared to others, let's look at the overall market, where ebooks are only 4% of all book sales:

http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm

So your showing me market share from before the majority of ebook readers and tablets launched ?

From your own article

E-books overtook audiobooks in 2009 with sales reaching $313 million in 2009, up 176.6%.

Not to mention that barnes and noble only entered the market in july of 2009 and borders entered in 2010. The market will only accelerate in growth

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2010/does-ebook-growth-mask-market-share-declines/

ebook growth for august 2010 was 172.4% higher than aguust 2009 and it had year to date sales growth of 193%

According to a report released earlier this week by Cowen and Co., “not only are sales of the Kindle device expected to grow 140% this year to nearly 5 million units from 2009, but digital book sales via the Kindle store are on track to grow 195% to $701 million in 2010.”

Kindle itself will bring in 701m sales and that they believe amazon has only 76% of the market at that point in time


the market is experiancing huge growth while the traditional market is at a virtual stand still . All this info is before the new e readers released and huge price drops from amazon and barnes and noble. After this was writen the kindle his $140 and $190 while the nook droped to $150 and $200 and then the nook color hit at $250 and also nook/kindle for ipad , iphone , andriod and other formats hit at the end of 2010

 

[corduroygt]

So your showing me market share from before the majority of ebook readers and tablets launched ?

It's not going to keep growing that fast. Let's look at more current sales (November 2010) and not bullshit estimates, not to mention selling books that are small enough to transmit via 3G is far easier than selling 10+ GB games and movies:

http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2011_Jan/November2010StatsPressRelease.htm

46M/852M makes about 5.4% marketshare for ebooks, and that's the US. It'll be much lower everywhere else.

 

[eastmen]

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5711


Before you say "but..but..but..it's from blu-ray.com", the numbers are from DEG.
For people who want to own movies, not only Blu-ray is outselling digital, it's also growing at a faster pace.
What's pathetic is the attempts to downplay Blu-ray consistently on here. HD DVD sour grapes indeed.

They also say the DD was 683m .

They also don't state if bluray sales with DD counts as a DD sale.


Shady reporting practices don't really help at all .

For example inception became the first bluray title to sell 65% of it stotal disc sales as bluray .

However blu-ray.com fails to say that each bluray sold included a digital and dvd copy of the movie and you can buy the blu-ray /dd/ dvd edition for just $2 more than the dvd only edition of the title .

 

[eastmen]

It's not going to keep growing that fast. Let's look at more current sales (November 2010) and not bullshit estimates, not to mention selling books that are small enough to transmit via 3G is far easier than selling 10+ GB games and movies:

http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2011_Jan/November2010StatsPressRelease.htm

46M/852M makes about 5.4% marketshare for ebooks, and that's the US. It'll be much lower everywhere else.

Your own link says it saw another 129.7% increase in market share from nov 2009 . Its year to date sales are up 165.6%

Its 5.4% of the market share for a catagory that didn't even really exist 5 years ago. All its current growth is dependent on the rise of ebook readers that only started coming out in 2008.


As for the diffrence in size , it hardly matters. You can preload games and you can stream content on the go for games also.

Its been discussed many times and i don't see why you keep brining up points that are knocked down time and time again

1) Preloading on new releases gamers can preorder and start downloading weeks or days before the games come out.

2) On the fly streaming . Here the developer sets up the download so that the game will install what it needs for the first level or two and once that 5gigs or so is downloaded you can start playing the game. As you play the game the console is still downloading and installing more of the game. Even games that are 40-50gigs can be set up this way requiring as little as 20minutes to 1 hour to download what is needed. For many that is less than the time it requires to go to the store to pick the title up and that time can be spent doing other things before the game is ready. MMORPGS already do this .

 

[manux]

Flash could go greater than 16GB each year they are able to put more GBs int he same mm2 . Bluray will be at 50GB and even though a x6 bluray drive is 3 times faster we are looking at 8-16 times the ram

Are you expecting 8-16 times larger binaries? Perhaps 16GB(doubling binary size from XBox360 / staying within current ps3 binary sizes) is enough and compression takes care of rest...

Problem with DD only is that it rules out large parts of potential customers who either don't want to have(it costs), cannot have or have limited quota for downloads away from your customer base.

I see it making much more sense to have multiple SKU's and phase out the physical media SKU should it not see market acceptance.

Edit. And to my terminology console getting games on flash cards is a physical media SKU. Where it get's grey is reusable flash drive and download kiosks should that happen.

 

[corduroygt]

They also say the DD was 683m .

They also don't state if bluray sales with DD counts as a DD sale.


Shady reporting practices don't really help at all .

For example inception became the first bluray title to sell 65% of it stotal disc sales as bluray .

However blu-ray.com fails to say that each bluray sold included a digital and dvd copy of the movie and you can buy the blu-ray /dd/ dvd edition for just $2 more than the dvd only edition of the title .

No one buys the Blu-ray version for the DD copy.

 

[-tkf-]

I think its a bluray sour grapes thread because some people refuse to believe that DD will over take blurays and people don't care about losseless audio.

I bet you anything that in the united states netflix is streaming more movies per minute than bluray is selling movies per minute.

The problem with bluray is its largely a fixed platform and so the codecs used will not be getting better and the disc space will not be getting larger.

DD is a diffrent beat. New codecs come out that offer better compression and image quality and they can simply add that codec to their support older players that can't handle it will default back to one they can , new ones will get better picture quality with the same bandwidth needs . Connection speeds go up and bitrates can go up also improving quality.

Right now its easy to say oh DD doesn't have this. but that wont be true forever. At one point digital download was 720p and now there is 1080p 5.1 movies on the zune market place for download . Its bitrate may not be as high as bluray.... yet but that hardly matters for the majority of users and its a gap that will continue to diminish year in and year out

no its not , the big 3 have been testing DD for the last 5-6 years and MS has been testing it even longer with the first xbox .

Consumers are getting more and more used to DD . Its not like when the record industry first moved to it in the very early 2000s . People are now used to buying music online and are getting used to buying books and streaming video thorugh netflix and buying video games on xbox live or psn .

If they want to go DD only in the big 3 markets they can allways go optical in the smaller markets . It would actually help fight piracy since the other markets wouldn't have a way to rip the content and put it onto their hardrives and with a DD only system you'd allways have the software calling home.

Since you are using the same tired old arguments i will refresh mine and then we can end up with the fronts clearly defined.. as usual.

DD is first and foremost competing with rental, and that is in the US, in the rest of the world or atleast the part i know it´s borderline useless compared to the traditional rental.

Buying movies via DD is stupid, you lock yourself to one certain Platform, with no guarantee that your purchase will "last forever" and since you are gonna say "nothing does" i will just say "lasts for 20+ years".

The quality is below the current Blu-Ray format, for now. It will require more bits to get better or a brand new line of codecs which is far off and would require brand new hardware all around. And that is unlikely.

I look forward to having an extended selection of movies that i can rent and stream with amazing quality, right now it´s not happening. And when it does i will keep on buying the movies i want to own on a format that is widely supported and lasts forever (20+ years).

You have been preaching about DD taking over everything for the past years, you will be right at some point so just keep on. But new codecs that make it possible to compete with VC-1 or AVC at 40mbit is not around the corner. And until DD finally solves the "locked to one platform" problem and makes it possible to purchase a movie on a PS3 and watch it on a 360 or Apple TV or where ever you want it will be bastard child with plenty of horrid stories. DD games has the same problems on a lesser scale, i can´t imagine having a 40+ games collection that dies whenever they aren´t supported anymore because the "network" is switched off. And i don´t see why anyone would prefer that.

I am in sour grapes camp on this, if HD-DVD still was in play this thread would look completely different.
I prefer this thread

 

[-tkf-]

The vast majority of the people in India and China cannot afford a $200 US gaming console. Those that can already have internet and are fairly well to do. Just look at the demographic breakdowns and average annual wage data. Both countries break down primarily as: Extremely rich, Upper income, and poor. Neither has a reasonably size middle class as a % basis.

But the amount of people that can afford a console is increasing and with the big numbers even a small percentage will count.

 

[joker454]

Problem with DD only is that it rules out large parts of potential customers who either don't want to have(it costs), cannot have or have limited quota for downloads away from your customer base.

All they have to do is offer both. Basically all games get released on dd and optical, same day and date. It's basically what the pc does today. A new pc game comes out and you can choose to go old school and buy it in a store on disc, or you can download it off steam. I'm assuming next gen consoles will go this route and offer both. There's really no reason not to as they have the entire dd infrastructure already in place, and already sell games there this gen. They just need to go the extra step and offer dd versions for all games same day and date as physical ones.