Console war, 3 questions

M

^M^

Newcomer
Maybe they are stupid, maybe it has already been discussed somewhere in a 200+ pages thread, but I go for it anyway.

It's the software stupid !
Sony has marketed the PS3 has a computer and media center. As a matter of fact for a Blue ray player it will be cheap as hell.
That may help them sell PS3, but waht good is it for them if people buy one with no intention to play with it. Money comes from the games, if people buy it to watch movies, they just loose money on each console.
Or is PS3 their response to the console and the format war ?

The World is split
What if each console get a massive win in a region ?
For exemple : Xbox in USA, Wee in Europe and PS3 in Japan.
That could be a mess, there would be no dominant platform and lot of games could never cross the oceans.

Wrong turn
What happens to PS3 if HD-DVD wins the format war ?
Will Sony build an external HD-DVD drve ?
Or will they stick with Blue-ray ?
 
My best guess and it maynot be totally educated, buy hey is that neither, HD-DVD nor BR will be the standard for HD video. First up the DVD market is still bobing along fine, 2 whilst videophiles will no doubts see the benefit in HD movies many of your normal DVD population can't tell the difference in quality and don't even own the hardware to utilise it anyway, my wife being one of them. I think the biggest competitor HD-DVD and BR have is not each other but DVD's.
 
Pugger said:
My best guess and it maynot be totally educated, buy hey is that neither, HD-DVD nor BR will be the standard for HD video. First up the DVD market is still bobing along fine, 2 whilst videophiles will no doubts see the benefit in HD movies many of your normal DVD population can't tell the difference in quality and don't even own the hardware to utilise it anyway, my wife being one of them. I think the biggest competitor HD-DVD and BR have is not each other but DVD's.
Click to expand...

Best thing they could do in this regard is flood the market with dvd/hddvd hybrid movies for the same price as regular dvd releases.
 
^M^ said:
Maybe they are stupid, maybe it has already been discussed somewhere in a 200+ pages thread, but I go for it anyway.

It's the software stupid !
Sony has marketed the PS3 has a computer and media center. As a matter of fact for a Blue ray player it will be cheap as hell.
That may help them sell PS3, but waht good is it for them if people buy one with no intention to play with it. Money comes from the games, if people buy it to watch movies, they just loose money on each console.
Or is PS3 their response to the console and the format war ?
Click to expand...

If its still cheaper than a stand alone BR player I see no problem on that. On the contrary this is a plus.

Also who said that PS3 will be sold as a BR player only device anyways? It is sold as a device used for entertainment in general. The consumer knows that. And judging from the PS2 these people that will buy it just to watch movies will be few.

Neither it is sold soleley as a gaming device. Sony has other purposes behind this product anyways so this is no problem for them

And dont forget that Sony can make money from selling movies as well.

PS3 happens to be both a response to the console and format war. Not necessarilly a bad thing.


Oh and too many huge if's
The World is split
What if each console get a massive win in a region ?
For exemple : Xbox in USA, Wee in Europe and PS3 in Japan.
That could be a mess, there would be no dominant platform and lot of games could never cross the oceans.
Click to expand...

Too many if's again

Wrong turn
What happens to PS3 if HD-DVD wins the format war ?
Will Sony build an external HD-DVD drve ?
Or will they stick with Blue-ray ?
Click to expand...
[/quote]

Again another huge if.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
^M^ said:
It's the software stupid !
Money comes from the games, if people buy it to watch movies, they just loose money on each console.
Click to expand...
That depends on hardware margins, which start at a negative but increase over time, and the establishing of a format for massive licensing fees. Even if people only buy PS3 to watch movies and that costs Sony money, if that establishes a large user base and BRD as the standard, Sony will be making buckets on the movies sold to all BRD players throughout the world. Plus anyone wanting to spend $500-600 on a disc player is likely going to be something of a videophile and buy lots of movies. I know plenty of households with no games and dozens of DVDs. Movies are more popular and Sony will likely get more movie sales per PS3 than game sales.

I also doubt many buyers of PS3 will only ever use it for movies. There's games that even if the buyer isn't interested in, other members of the family likely will be, and then there's the supposed extra features like buying songs over the internet. There's potential to earn lots of money without anyone buying any games.

In summary, I don't think this hypothetical situation exists in relevant form.
The World is split
What if each console get a massive win in a region ?
For exemple : Xbox in USA, Wee in Europe and PS3 in Japan.
That could be a mess, there would be no dominant platform and lot of games could never cross the oceans.
Click to expand...
Perhaps, but that wouldn't be a first. All too often Japan sees games we never do and vice versa, because there's different markets. As it is now, an intention to release in the EU needs a lot of work due to localisation issues. There's some suggestion that PS3 games will be region free and be localised for all supported nationalities on the one disc. If so, there'll be nothing to stop releasing into different markets as long as the user base is there to make it economical. If you have a game for Europe with English language on Console X with 10 million uesrs, why not release to NA even if the userbase is only 1 million? It's little more work and will add 10% to your sales.
Wrong turn
What happens to PS3 if HD-DVD wins the format war ?
Will Sony build an external HD-DVD drve ?
Or will they stick with Blue-ray ?
Click to expand...
They'll stick with BluRay. They need BRD internally for all PS3 games so can't switch. There's no point adding an HDDVD addon as by the time any format has won, standalone players will be cheap enough.
 
^M^ said:
Maybe they are stupid, maybe it has already been discussed somewhere in a 200+ pages thread, but I go for it anyway.

It's the software stupid !
Sony has marketed the PS3 has a computer and media center. As a matter of fact for a Blue ray player it will be cheap as hell.
That may help them sell PS3, but waht good is it for them if people buy one with no intention to play with it. Money comes from the games, if people buy it to watch movies, they just loose money on each console.
Or is PS3 their response to the console and the format war ?
Click to expand...
I assume Sony has a few patents on Blu-Ray technology, so they will make money on every piece of hardware that uses blu-ray. Apparently, this is precisely one of the reasons Sony is pushing BR so hard, some of its CD-ROM patents are about about to expire.

The World is split
What if each console get a massive win in a region ?
For exemple : Xbox in USA, Wee in Europe and PS3 in Japan.
That could be a mess, there would be no dominant platform and lot of games could never cross the oceans.
Click to expand...
Most titles will be multiplatform - with the exception of Wii (different target audience) - therefore most games will look very similar.

Wrong turn
What happens to PS3 if HD-DVD wins the format war ?
Will Sony build an external HD-DVD drve ?
Or will they stick with Blue-ray ?
Click to expand...

I guess BR will still remain the media for games, no change for PS3. Sony will be hurting though.

Worse case scenario for Sony: MS decides to bury sony - even if at the cost of lose more money - and significantly drops the xbox 360 price at the same time releasing a more stable version of 360... :devilish:
 
acaeus said:
Most titles will be multiplatform - with the exception of Wii (different target audience) - therefore most games will look very similar.
Click to expand...

Well, if most titles are multiplatform and look very similar, somebody who put tons of pricey rocket science in their sleek black box will be hurting for five years straight. If the pain is unbearable, who knows, maybe the tables will be turned and Sony will try to end the 360/ps3 generation earlier by releasing a PS4 in 2009/2010.

And don't give me that "different target audience" bullshit about the Wii. Nintendo decided - maybe with good reasons - to make a Gamecube 1.2 instead of a next-gen console; from that point on, the insufficient power of the hardware will be the reason publishers choose against porting to Wii, not some mythical "target audience".
 
assen said:
Well, if most titles are multiplatform and look very similar, somebody who put tons of pricey rocket science in their sleek black box will be hurting for five years straight. If the pain is unbearable, who knows, maybe the tables will be turned and Sony will try to end the 360/ps3 generation earlier by releasing a PS4 in 2009/2010.

And don't give me that "different target audience" bullshit about the Wii. Nintendo decided - maybe with good reasons - to make a Gamecube 1.2 instead of a next-gen console; from that point on, the insufficient power of the hardware will be the reason publishers choose against porting to Wii, not some mythical "target audience".
Click to expand...

heh I actually agree with you. I just didn't wan't to go any further and explain the whys.

Besides, I'm more polite. ;)
 
^M^ said:
Wrong turn
What happens to PS3 if HD-DVD wins the format war ?
Will Sony build an external HD-DVD drve ?
Or will they stick with Blue-ray ?
Click to expand...


My own guess on this, is that 1) They won't give up easily. I can't see them giving up BRD exclusivity for PS3 until at least Christmas 2008. 2). If forced to concede the larger HD movie format battle is lost, they'd go to a BRD/HDDVD hybrid drive to perserve backwards compatibility and still market PS3 believably as an HD home entertainment platform.

I think BRD can credibly score the early knockout in the HD movie wars, but HDDVD probably can't, because Sony has more riding on it and has the position and stubbornness to draw the battle out over the longer term even if losing.

But to tell you the truth, today I'd still give BRD a bit of the edge in the long run for winning the format war. Tho a little bit less than I would have yesterday. ;)
 
BluRay vs. HD-DVD (Beta vs. VHS again). So far HD-DVD is winning this battle as far as picture quality and price go. Pick up any magazine and read the HD-DVD vs. BluRay comparison you'll find HD-DVD quality is superior. I don't how this will effect gaming consoles as for myself I plan on getting a stang alone player anyway as conosles never have quality equal to stand alone players.
 
NBK-Steve said:
BluRay vs. HD-DVD (Beta vs. VHS again). So far HD-DVD is winning this battle as far as picture quality and price go. Pick up any magazine and read the HD-DVD vs. BluRay comparison you'll find HD-DVD quality is superior. I don't how this will effect gaming consoles as for myself I plan on getting a stang alone player anyway as conosles never have quality equal to stand alone players.
Click to expand...

Excuse the typo's...:oops:
 
NBK-Steve said:
BluRay vs. HD-DVD (Beta vs. VHS again). So far HD-DVD is winning this battle as far as picture quality and price go. Pick up any magazine and read the HD-DVD vs. BluRay comparison you'll find HD-DVD quality is superior. I don't how this will effect gaming consoles as for myself I plan on getting a stang alone player anyway as conosles never have quality equal to stand alone players.
Click to expand...

Not really.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33396

It was a case of comparing a recent firmware upgraded Toshiba HD-DVD with a Samsung BD player with a faulty chip, and comparing an VCI encoded 30 GB dual later HD-DVD movie with a 25 GB Bluray movie encoded in mpeg2 which can only manage half the compression of VCI or AVC codecs.

The main reason for this was presumably that there was nothing else out there at the time.

I think Toshiba has an uphill struggle keeping the HD-DVD standard from failing. This is because like Sony with the Betamax format, Toshiba is pretty well the sole company manufacturing it. NEC and Sanyo are the only two HD-DVD player manufacturer, but they are small fry in terms of consumer electronics. On the other hand Bluray players will be manufactured by all the major CE giants with the exception of Toshiba.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
geo said:
1) They won't give up easily. I can't see them giving up BRD exclusivity for PS3 until at least Christmas 2008.
Click to expand...
I'd be gobsmacked if sony give up as early as that. Looking at Betamax vs VHS, from a launch in 1975 Betamax was still a contender for 10-15 years, and even had devices being produced into this millenium. This HDDVD format conflict will go on for the life of PS3 for sure, unless, the movie studios make and early decision to drop one format.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
I'd be gobsmacked if sony give up as early as that. Looking at Betamax vs VHS, from a launch in 1975 Betamax was still a contender for 10-15 years, and even had devices being produced into this millenium. This HDDVD format conflict will go on for the life of PS3 for sure, unless, the movie studios make and early decision to drop one format.
Click to expand...

There were technical reasons why Betamax clung on - it was the technically superior format, so it was used in certain technical applications like portable video cameras. However Betamax was dead as a format for prerecorded films for mass consumer consumption pretty quickly - in fact it never really got started.

HD-DVD has no technical merits over BD so it is unlikely to hang on in specialist niches. Of course even if HD-DVD fails in the mass market, Toshiba like Sony with the Betamax format will keep on producing players for those who want to buy through pride, and as a recording media it can still be used, but as with Betamax, you will find it difficult to find prerecorded content on the format.

Of course this is all still speculation - it hasn't happened yet, but things are looking ominous for HD-DVD, particularly in Europe where retailers don't seem to be bothering to stock HD-DVD drives or players.
 
SPM said:
Of course this is all still speculation - it hasn't happened yet, but things are looking ominous for HD-DVD, particularly in Europe where retailers don't seem to be bothering to stock HD-DVD drives or players.
Click to expand...

Well that might be due to the fact that HDDVD players haven't been released in Europe yet...?
 
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