David Jaffe: I Would Not Have Included Blu-ray in PS3

[Arwin]

Actually it is sony has to prove that the 200 dollar premium for blue ray is worth it. MS has nothing to prove right now as they have a larger user base and outselling the PS3 badly in NA. Sony is the one the one this time around who has to do the proving. MS has so far passed every test and put a ton of money in a lot of developers pockets thanks to a user base who buys games like crazy.

I'm going to repeat myself:

And no, they [Microsoft] can't prove this in just the first one or two years.

On the other hand, I do agree with you that it is now up to Sony to prove the advantage of BluRay for gaming by this Christmas (and I think they will, or Insomniac will, or SquareEnix, or some other party).

Again, nothing in my post is saying that Microsoft is doing a lousy job. I think they're definitely bringing their A-game, and are doing a good job. But sacrifices have been made, and Sony needs to make them visible. I think economics of scale will bring the cost of a BluRay drive and a DVD drive together pretty soon.

 

[one]

Except I am not sure how much movie playback has ever really mattered in consoles.

I mean, is Blu-Ray playback a big factor in why people purchase PS3's now? How about in the future?

First we have to assume the purchaser is interested in playing movies on the machine. It seems Blu Ray in PS3 has a very low takeup rate in that respect. According to one survey I've read just 22% of PS3 owners use it for movies. To me, looking at the sales of stand alone HDDVD players, then PS3 sales, then actual movie sales on each format, it's stunning to me that Blu-Ray is not dominating much more than it is. I mean, since launch in the USA PS3 has sold 1.1 million consoles in four months. I dont know stand alone HDDVD sales, but <20,000 a month seems to be a reasonable guess. So you can see PS3 absolutly swamps HDDVD in volume, yet in disc sales, it seems to be 3-1 for Blu-Ray, 2-1 for Blu-Ray, a much lower level of domination than the PS3 sales suggest. I think the value of each stand alone player sold is mutiples higher than each player sold in a console, because the buyer of a stand alone, is someone who is targeting the format to play movies. In this way I see the X360 add on making sense. Only people who are actively interested in HDDVD's will buy this. This is why I'm sure the "attach rate" on HDDVD hardware is much higher than on Blu-Ray if you count PS3.

I look back to DVD sales. I'm not sure how much DVD playback ever helped the PS2. Of course as of today, it's irrelevant, mostly. There was a small window in time when a PS2 maybe had some added value as a DVD player, before DVD penetration became ubiquitous, but the price of the PS2 was necessarily pretty high at that point ($299).

I think Blu-Ray in PS3 will be fighting that same small window of relevancy, before Blu-Ray/HDDVD prices plummet. As of now the price of PS3 is very high, so I dont think it's wildly attractive as a Blu-Ray player. Meanwhile, HDDVD stand alone prices are dropping like a rock, should be a $199 player by this fall. You could say the same for Blu-Ray, I even wonder is Sony holding up the price of Blu-Ray stand alone's to make PS3 more attractive? Overall that would be a very poor move for the format if so.

The other thing that I think will work against PS3 Blu_Ray to a point, is HDTV adoption. There's going to be some percent of PS3 owners who simply dont own HDTV's, and to them Blu-Ray movies are useless.

We can also look at UMD, which kind of probably stigmatized the entire Sony console trying to establish a format thing for retailers in the near past.

Personally, I've never liked playing movies on my consoles, because I worry it'll wear out the drive faster. For example, I dont really use my 360 as a DVD player for that reason. I suspect that's more my own oddity though, and not anything the vaunted casuals would would ever think about.

Wow you made the same mistake that quest55720 made in the comment I responded to in this old thread! It demonstrates how circular this argument is.

 

[Vic]

Ah, those 200$. But you don't pay all of that for the blue laser diode and the plastic lens with the slightly different numeric aperture. You pay about 100$ for a machine that doesn't destroy itself, doesn't make you deaf and accepts industry-standard storage and accessories. 30$ for more processor throughput, 30$ for playing a couple thousand PS2 games, 10$ for good looks, leaving 30$ for Blu-ray. And I'm being generous.

It needs more games. And it will get them.

That post will be jumped on, but I have to agree to a large extent. One thing putting me off buying a 360 is the build quality. Its laughable. Yet its the most important thing when buying hardware. The pricing of the accessories is another thing stopping me, as I know I'll end up spending close to the price of PS3, and I'd rather have Blu-ray.

 

[oli2]

Wow you made the same mistake that quest55720 made in the comment I responded to in this old thread! It demonstrates how circular this argument is.

If i exclude UMD part of your discussion (Rangers and One), on which i think it is irrelevant, i don't get what "you prove" except giving "wishful thinking".
Could you reformulate, please ?

If i had to resume how i see things for now for the mainstream : 600 € a console is far too expensive. Many say it needs AAA titiles (obvious), and that 's all. I am not so sure this is enough.


600 € for a BR player is too expensive, too ! You can say that standalone players are far more expensive, and this is true, but casual buyers don't analyse things that way.

One interesting discussion is what will be the price of Xbox360 and standalone BR players, when PS3 will reach the 400 € price ?

 

[archangelmorph]

That post will be jumped on, but I have to agree to a large extent. One thing putting me off buying a 360 is the build quality. Its laughable. Yet its the most important thing when buying hardware. The pricing of the accessories is another thing stopping me, as I know I'll end up spending close to the price of PS3, and I'd rather have Blu-ray.

Does anyone know whether the build quality of the 360 has improved by now (specifically in the UK)..?

I'm looking to purchase one in about two weeks time and I don't want to have to deal with it breaking down a (few) month(s) later... Especially when, for how much i'm planning to spend to start off with, I could also get a PS3 instead (However i'm not sure if I wwould yet considering i'll be HD gaming on one of my PC monitors at least until i get my own place and a HDTV along with it)..

Any help/purchase advice would be much appreciated! (you can PM me if you like so as to not derail this thread..)

Thanks! :smile:

 

[-tkf-]

http://www.hdforindies.com/uploaded_images/resolution_chart-790251.jpg

More accurate.

More wrong

This is the best thing i have read on eye res so far:

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html

Based on the above data for the resolution of the human eye, let's try a "small" example first. Consider a view in front of you that is 90 degrees by 90 degrees, like looking through an open window at a scene. The number of pixels would be
90 degrees * 60 arc-minutes/degree * 1/0.3 * 90 * 60 * 1/0.3 = 324,000,000 pixels (324 megapixels).
At any one moment, you actually do not perceive that many pixels, but your eye moves around the scene to see all the detail you want. But the human eye really sees a larger field of view, close to 180 degrees. Let's be conservative and use 120 degrees for the field of view. Then we would see
120 * 120 * 60 * 60 / (0.3 * 0.3) = 576 megapixels.

You don´t have to be able to see one pixel to benefit from a higher resolution. The guy got some examples on printers as well.

 

[one]

If i exclude UMD part of your discussion (Rangers and One), on which i think it is irrelevant, i don't get what "you prove" except giving "wishful thinking".
Could you reformulate, please ?

If i had to resume how i see things for now for the mainstream : 600 € a console is far too expensive. Many say it needs AAA titiles (obvious), and that 's all. I am not so sure this is enough.


600 € for a BR player is too expensive, too ! You can say that standalone players are far more expensive, and this is true, but casual buyers don't analyse things that way.

If you call it wishful thinking then what Jaffe claims is wishful thinking too. The fact is Resistance would have been a 2-disc or 3-disc game if PS3 didn't have BD. Another fact is, PS2 is more profitable than PS3 for now. PS3 is a long-term project, or longer-term to be precise. The point is, you are arguing against a straw man.

One interesting discussion is what will be the price of Xbox360 and standalone BR players, when PS3 will reach the 400 € price ?

Now that looks like a comparison between Dreamcast that cannot play DVD and PS2 that can.

 

[aselto]

Does anyone know whether the build quality of the 360 has improved by now (specifically in the UK)..?

Thanks! :smile:

I have a PAL console made in september 06 and bought in november 06. It's a bit quiter than older consoles and I haven't had a single freeze - works really stable. The only problem I had is that it scratches discs in vertical position.

As for BRD, it's definitely nice to have it in console... but majority of consoles sold right now are NDS, Wii and PS2 - which shows that majority of people don't care about high-end technology.

one - I'm pretty sure Resistance would fit on a DVD if Insomniac wanted to. Motorstorm is the same it has only 1 environment and 8 tracks, yet it exceeds 8GB, but Project Gotham Racing 4 will have 10 environments and it will fit on a DVD...

 

[archangelmorph]

I have a PAL console made in september 06 and bought in november 06. It's a bit quiter than older consoles and I haven't had a single freeze - works really stable. The only problem I had is that it scratches discs in vertical position.

Seems to be a recurring theme around here.. I'll bare that in mind thanx!

one - I'm pretty sure Resistance would fit on a DVD if Insomniac wanted to. Motorstorm is the same it has only 1 environment and 8 tracks, yet it exceeds 8GB, but Project Gotham Racing 4 will have 10 environments and it will fit on a DVD...

I'm confused as to why you would provide such a comparison which so blatantly assumes that your "environment" is consistent in both file size, mesh complexity, texture detail, compression ratio & capacity of material/shader & physical/collision information across the two games when it's highly unlikely that this would ever be the case..

 

[one]

one - I'm pretty sure Resistance would fit on a DVD if Insomniac wanted to. Motorstorm is the same it has only 1 environment and 8 tracks, yet it exceeds 8GB, but Project Gotham Racing 4 will have 10 environments and it will fit on a DVD...

Resistance in DVD is a different game from Resistance in BD. Not to mention the drive noise of 12x DVD.

 

[aselto]

I'm confused as to why you would provide such a comparison which so blatantly assumes that your "environment" is consistent in both file size, mesh complexity, texture detail, compression ratio & capacity of material/shader & physical/collision information across the two games when it's highly unlikely that this would ever be the case..

Well, having played PGR3 and Motorstorm I think it's fair to say that Motorstorm doesn't have more detailed tracks and better textures and I doubt PGR4 will be inferior to PGR3 in that regard. I also don't think Physical/collision data takes so much space.

Resistance in DVD is a different game from Resistance in BD. Not to mention the drive noise of 12x DVD.

Yes, you wouldn't have optional languages and Insomniac would be forced to make real-time cut-scenes. Other than that it would be the same game.

I'm not saying BRD exctra space will not be useful. I think that initial PS3 games weren't just games that showed that BRD was all that necessary.

 

[Kryton]

More wrong

This is the best thing i have read on eye res so far:

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html



You don´t have to be able to see one pixel to benefit from a higher resolution. The guy got some examples on printers as well.

It's an extremely flawed analysis though. Firstly, the eye has a fovea centralis which has lots of receptors (that analysis treats the entire fovea as having the same density). It also assumes you view the image at the minimum focal length i.e. as close as is possible. With a large TV sat a long way away, you don't do this.

 

[Arwin]

Yes, you wouldn't have optional languages and Insomniac would be forced to make real-time cut-scenes. Other than that it would be the same game.

It would have meant they'd probably have needed different discs for different regions, which adds considerable cost. Making the cut-scenes real-time also would have been more expensive. Also, they'd have had to be more careful from day one, limiting their options.

More importantly though, Resistance is only Insomniac's first generation title. Let's see what Ratchet & Clank 4 will need, with the new version of the engine that supports streaming textures. I think 3 needed 4.16GB on the PS2.

 

[aselto]

It would have meant they'd probably have needed different discs for different regions, which adds considerable cost.

You also forgot to add that bluray discs are 3 times cheaper than DVDs... Oh wait.

More importantly though, Resistance is only Insomniac's first generation title. Let's see what Ratchet & Clank 4 will need, with the new version of the engine that supports streaming textures. I think 3 needed 4.16GB on the PS2.

Well, 360 has more RAM [available to games] and is in 2nd generation of games and so far DVD capacity didn't affect games' length scale, graphics, production values or anything else (maybe sound). Developers can also split a game on two discs. I think DVD's capacity will hinder game design in relatively few games.

 

[function]

Resistance in DVD is a different game from Resistance in BD.

Different in any way that matters? It's safe to say no. Except that it would probably have sold a lot better on DVD for a cheaper, DVD based console.

(Blue Dragon on 1 BR disk would be a "different" game too btw.)

This 14GB (or whatever) for Resistance is really being used as a smoke screen by both sides of the increasingly heated PS3/BR fan/hater battle. It simultaneously proves that DVDs are already absolete with BR being used to provide games you couldn't do without them, whilst also proving that BR is completely unnecessary and only being used for GB of needless video, audio and laziness.

I know I've said it before, but this is all so reminiscent of the Saturn/PS and MD/SNES days. Right down to arguments like this one going on now. People (and consoles) grow old, but the world stays the same - or something like that.

 

[sudzy]

It seems when it comes to BR vs. DVD discussions it ALWAYS is the same people saying the same thing with different words.
over and over and over...
Personally, I like BRD.

 

[one]

This 14GB (or whatever) for Resistance is really being used as a smoke screen by both sides of the increasingly heated PS3/BR fan/hater battle. It simultaneously proves that DVDs are already absolete with BR being used to provide games you couldn't do without them, whilst also proving that BR is completely unnecessary and only being used for GB of needless video, audio and laziness.

I'd say you're too quick to write BD off just 5 months after the launch of PS3 with only a couple of 1st party titles out there. I remember DeanoC's comment about the size of Heavenly Sword...

 

[Arwin]

You also forgot to add that bluray discs are 3 times cheaper than DVDs... Oh wait.

No, BluRay discs are more expensive. But how do these costs stack up? Is it $1 difference per disc? These differences are going to become smaller and smaller. In the meantime, how much does authoring and testing different discs cost? Different production runs? How much advantage do you have by being able to distribute your discs to any region that needs them? Etc. Would be nice to see some decent bit of analysis of this. They will probably vary depending on how many games you sell and so on, so it's a complex matter.

Well, 360 has more RAM [available to games] and is in 2nd generation of games and so far DVD capacity didn't affect games' length scale, graphics, production values or anything else (maybe sound). Developers can also split a game on two discs. I think DVD's capacity will hinder game design in relatively few games.

You don't know this *at all*. In fact, DVD capacity may even be limiting a large number of cross-platform games length, scale, graphics, and production values. So far, game developers simply have had to make do with DVD.

 

[one]

As for the PS3 price:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=apxJ8MoSy6No&refer=japan

Sony Shares Rise on Report Profit to Exceed Estimates (Update3)

By Masaki Kondo and Yoshinori Eki

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Sony Corp., the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker, rose to a two-month high after the Nikkei reported operating profit this fiscal year will beat analysts' estimates on Bravia television sales.

...

Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer targets an operating profit margin of 5 percent by March 2008, about double the current margin. Tokyo-based Sony confirmed today that it will only sell a more expensive version of its PlayStation 3 game console in North America, a strategy it adopted for the European market to bolster margins.

``Profit margin will probably exceed 5 percent if Sony doesn't lower the price of PlayStation 3,'' Hitoshi Kuriyama, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. wrote in a report dated yesterday. He rates the stock a ``buy.''

 

[aselto]

You don't know this *at all*. In fact, DVD capacity may even be limiting a large number of cross-platform games length, scale, graphics, and production values. So far, game developers simply have had to make do with DVD.

Of course everything I write is only my assumptions.
I don't know why you wrote about multiplatform games - DVD is also affecting 360's exclusives. I could also write that PS3's architecture is limiting cross-platform games (of 360 erchitecture), if you want to spin it that way.

No, BluRay discs are more expensive. But how do these costs stack up? Is it $1 difference per disc? These differences are going to become smaller and smaller. In the meantime, how much does authoring and testing different discs cost? Different production runs? How much advantage do you have by being able to distribute your discs to any region that needs them? Etc. Would be nice to see some decent bit of analysis of this. They will probably vary depending on how many games you sell and so on, so it's a complex matter.

I think PS3 games have different certifications in different regions despite being region-free. FWIW there are multilanguage free-region 360 games, too (Viva Pinata).