IF: Blu Ray wins format war THEN: Sony laughs all the way to the bank?

[Hardknock]

Digital distribution to take off and beat HD optical needs sweeping changes. First, you need much much larger hard disks. Second, you need competitive bitrates. Third, you need to match the features: sound tracks, subtitles, extras. Fourth, you need to to operate within the household bandwidth that most consumers outside of Korea and Japan have. Fifth, you have to convince the studios to get onboard.

Most industry analysts think true HD digital distribution is atleast 10 years old. Those people trying to sell it of course will overhype that its just around the corner, but of course, HDTV was just around the corner 10 years ago and it took ten years and it's still not mainstream yet.

Simply downloading a VC-1 encoded file does not give parity with optical disk. Optical disks are more than just the video/audio coded streams.

Do I detect that Dave approves of disingenous corporate behavior on the part of Microsoft, in trying to throw a cog into industry resolution on next-gen optical formats, just because it wants to be the gatekeeper of digital online distribution. The prolonging of the format war is bad for consumers, since whatever you think of digital distribution, optical distribution will still be an incredibly useful technology, and even desired, by many consumers, before the so-called digital distribution future nirvana.

It seems like people now freely admit that's whats happening, as well as bald faced lying by MS's media people like Amir, as to their true intentions.

The two can co-exist. And it all comes down to consumer choice. I have an HD-DVD player and have also downloaded 720p VC-1 encoded movies on XBL Marketplace. While there is a difference in quality I think the vast majority of consumers will say it's 'good enough'. Just look at how popular MP3s have become compared to CDs. Music fans have shown they will take a slight quality lose for added convenience over a CD anyday. Why wouldn't this be true for Video aswell?

 

[JasonLD]

If Blu Ray wins format war, then yes...Sony laughs all the way to the bank. MS is just supporting HDDVD to counter Sony and nothing else. All MS needs to do is support bluray for its future console if that scenario happens.

 

[Hardknock]

4GB VC-1 is going to be DVD quality. You're talking 4Mbit/s, so 1/2 the rate of top DVDs, but double the resolution. Also, soundtrack quality will be worse than next-gen. Plus, no multiple audio tracks, in many cases few or no subtitles, no bonus content/commentary.

Plus, how do you take the movie to the living room of another friend to watch it? Does MS allow you to burn VC-1 discs and play them back elsewhere, or downgrade an VC-1 to DVD and watch it elsewhere?

The Ant Bully was 4 or 5 GBs (I forget) and V for Vendetta was 7 GBs. Both looked incredible and far above the DVDs that I own...

 

[Acert93]

Do I detect that Dave approves of disingenous corporate behavior on the part of Microsoft, in trying to throw a cog into industry resolution on next-gen optical formats, just because it wants to be the gatekeeper of digital online distribution.

I cannot speak for Dave, but speaking for myself I can say that I am all for HD DVD and BluRay tearing eachother apart until digitial distribution becomes the alternative consumers choose. Both already want you to have internet access, and they are not very friendly toward honest consumers in regards to protection. The benefits of HD optical media fall short to what DVDs offered over VHS and the jump in space and speed isn't really impressive IMO. The companies behind the scene also have their own priorities they are looking after -- so to pin this on MS and to ignore all the haggling in the DVD consortium is interesting to say the least -- and ultimately I think HD DVD/BluRay are illfated for the very reason digital distribution is coming. Why would I want to invest in VHS, DVD, BDR, and the a portable digital format? I have absolutely no interest in purchasing the same movies -- again -- tied to a platform when more flexible, digital formats will be available that will play on a host of devices regardless of delivery media?

I know you make quite a bit of money, but I personally find it a short term investment which, for my stake in movie media, just isn't worth it.

And while digital distribution may not be ready for the mainstream today, MS (Live, IPTV) and Apple (iTunes, AppleTV) have clearly been paving the path to make it happen sooner than later for many Americans. If HD DVD and BluRay sales don't ramp up considerably (which is a good question because HDTV is still a growing market as you yourself note) and have a drawn out platform war I could easily see Digital Distribution be ready to be a major player by 2009. Major meaning the ability to touch a comparable number of homes relative to BluRay and HD DVD.

The prolonging of the format war is bad for consumers

Sony and Toshiba should have solved that problem when they had the chance in the Summer of 2005.

So the question is: Will HD DVD's "enough space" and lower platform and media costs win out, or does BluRay's technical superiority and additional price premium and exclusive studio support win out? Or does the 'still growing' HDTV market slow things and the contrast of 'better price' and 'more exclusives' drag this out to an ugly end?

As far as I can see MS, Apple, and others are only doing what ANY good company does for their investors and customers: hedge their bets in an ugly situation.

since whatever you think of digital distribution, optical distribution will still be an incredibly useful technology, and even desired, by many consumers, before the so-called digital distribution future nirvana.[/quote[

since whatever you think of HD optical media, DVD distribution will still be an incredibly useful technology, and even desired, by many consumers, before the so-called HD optical media future nirvana.

It seems like people now freely admit that's whats happening, as well as bald faced lying by MS's media people like Amir, as to their true intentions.

Got some quotes from Amir and others of relevance (not just arm chair commentators) admitting such?

MS has already stated they don't believe there will be another platform after HD DVD/BluRay and do see digital distribution as the future. It would be stupid, moronic, and niave not to believe that they are not investing already to prepare for this--both technologically and gearing consumers for such. Likewise the hostility they have received from Sony requires that they be proactive because come the PS5 Sony will be leveraging it for the very purpose to drive whatever new standard Sony feels it is in its best interest. Tit for Tat. HD DVD is obviously in MS's best interests on many levels (codecs, interactive software layer, Xbox 360 addons, and so forth) and Sony et al haven't given MS much incentive to go out of their way for BluRay. And I think the activity you are blatantly ripping MS for is the same one you could argue that Sony et al are guilty of and their jumping ship to do BluRay and the use of other popular platforms to further establish their dominance and presence in the market. All these companies true intentions are pretty obvious: Make Money.

And while I don't think MS's intentions are purely driven at stalling HD optical formats, the first people to look at when being all pissy about this stupid war are Toshiba and Sony (and their partners) and how their own corporate coffers were WAAAAAAAAY more important than consumers to begin with. It isn't surprising to see Apple and MS, the vultures that they are, coming in to pick up the scraps the CE companies have left scattered around.

None of this would even be an issue if the companies that had swallowed their pride on DVDs had done what was the best for consumers across the board. Now?

In the end I think consumers will win because while there will be physical media distribution formats the emphasis will begin to shift toward digital formats that are not tied to a media delivery device.

 

[Dregun]

The two can co-exist. And it all comes down to consumer choice. I have an HD-DVD player and have also downloaded 720p VC-1 encoded movies on XBL Marketplace. While there is a difference in quality I think the vast majority of consumers will say it's 'good enough'. Just look at how popular MP3s have become compared to CDs. Music fans have shown they will take a slight quality lose for added convenience over a CD anyday. Why wouldn't this be true for Video aswell?

People liked the convenient nature of Mp3's but that doesn't mean they liked the quality of it. When MP3's really started to gain momentum the majority of people were still on Dial Up so 5mins to download one song was as long as they wanted to wait. Also MP3's meant free music at that time too and once broadband became more widely available did "Legal" downloads become accepted. These legal downloads also offer near CD quality sound (the good stores anyways) compared to the 64k & 128k files that crammed dial up downloaders. Also CD's haven't offered anything new since they included "PC" content as "extra's" on some Enhanced CD's and the consumer was getting fed up with paying $15 for 1 or 2 songs they found "Good". I think people will feel different about the potential of losing a $1 song compared to a $15 Movie or $50 game due to data loss.



Dregun

 

[Rangers]

Do I detect that Dave approves of disingenous corporate behavior on the part of Microsoft, in trying to throw a cog into industry resolution on next-gen optical formats,

What are you getting at here? I dont even understand it. They're supporting an optical disk, because they want to own online distribution..how does that make sense again?

just because it wants to be the gatekeeper of digital online distribution..

As opposed to Sony and Apple, who are in it for the good of the customers right? Give me a break dude.

The prolonging of the format war is bad for consumers,

So the Blu-Ray alliance should give it up already. I'll go ahead and wait around for that, not.

MS has plenty of reasons to support HDDVD, otherwise they wouldn't have been FORMAT NEUTRAL for so long.

Talking about the Hi-Def movies on live, yes they are 4-7 GB but I have to assume there is some reduced qaulity there. Sure they look nice, but I'd imagine it's somewhere well above standard DVD but less than a true Hi-Def disk. Otherwise we could have virtually had Hi-def on current DVD's.

As far as this talk of broadband, there is a second speed grade coming to most people. Fiber. I can see this taking over at about the rate broadband did as a lot of it is currently being laid in USA. However, IIRC it is a 30Mb connection. Fast, but not amazingly so.

 

[-tkf-]

The Ant Bully was 4 or 5 GBs (I forget) and V for Vendetta was 7 GBs. Both looked incredible and far above the DVDs that I own...

720p and at low bitrates, i´ll pass

 

[scooby_dooby]

4GB VC-1 is going to be DVD quality. You're talking 4Mbit/s, so 1/2 the rate of top DVDs, but double the resolution.

Current XBLive movies are ~6.5mbit and look a hell of alot better than DVD quality.

Personally I'd like to see more around the 12-16 level if I'm paying for it though.

As for the next generation of consoles using BR, I'd hope we've moved past optical media by then, be it HVD or something else.

 

[inefficient]

According the recent numbers from MS, a year in the 360's life Live members were only around 50% of all Xbox360 owners at best. (And it was not clear if their xbox live numbers were including Xbox1 members as well). This is not good considering that most people who have the 360 now are the most hardcore people who will ever own a 360. A whole lot of gamers won't/can't/do not connect their 360 to the net.

Unless those numbers seriously improve, it suggests that anyone who releases a console next gen without some sort of optical drive is going to be shooting themselves in the foot big time. Even if MS manages to pull a lead over Sony, all that effort could be nullified if they refuse to include a cheap optical drive.

Even if they ended up with something like 70% to 80% on Live members, are they willing to lose 20-30% of their install base to the competition? And that does not take into consideration that a lot of those 70-80% do not have broadband access (Many DSL contracts don't even qualify as broadband.) The end user experience of spending up to days to download a single game might be quite crappy.

I know someone in Sony blurbed that there is a chance the PS4 will not have an optical drive. But I think even he realizes that is pretty unlikely. Even with the most optimistic outlook, PS3 will have a lower online user to console owner tie ratio. I think even 50% of PS3 games online would be pretty significant for Sony. My crystal ball shows me a PS4 with a slightly updated BD drive that can read 4 layer 100GB BD-ROM discs or better and still remains compatible with existing BD media. The drive will be cheap to manufacture too and add minimal cost to the unit.

If by chance HD-DVD kills BD, Sony will probably put in a dual format drive into their system for minimal cost. Enforce BD for games and yet allow HD-DVD movies.

 

[Crayon]

If we're looking at 50GB games in six years time... that's a seriously big download. I don't know what's up with the next step in consumer internet connections, but won't something faster be needed? What will the market penetration of something like that be?

 

[PARANOiA]

If we're looking at 50GB games in six years time... that's a seriously big download. I don't know what's up with the next step in consumer internet connections, but won't something faster be needed? What will the market penetration of something like that be?

I think people need to take a step back and look at the rate of change in technology over a period of six years. It it definitely a very long time - I'm on an internet connection 25x faster that I had six years ago. I have no reason to believe I'll be on anything less than 25x what I have today by the time the next gen of consoles arrive. More likely, I'll see a much faster rate of change... if I remember correctly, there was a recent (lab) test of something like 1gb/s broadband file transfer. Now it's not quite consumer use, but people will laugh at 50gb in the same way hard drive users laughed at having 1tb five years ago - any many geeks do today.

In fact, I'd wager that by then, "wireless anywhere" will be the next big thing... so "digital distribution" will not necessarily be dependant on the customer's internet, and more on their location.

Just some food for thought.

 

[FireGoblin]

My humble opinion - and one that I have raised in a seperate thread - is that we must factor Windows Home Server into this equation. If the 'XBox720' streams it's content from a central home server (including games) then the options for purchasing the game itself suddenly explode.

The binary can be downloaded from an online service, it can be copied onto the WHS from a HD-DVD or a BluRay, or from a string on DVD's. If it's episodic you can be playing the first level while the additional levels are downloading/purchased in the background.

The WHS is not a closed box, it's a PC, therefore there is no issue with upgrading etc, users can choose whichever option they want according to the market forces and their equipment.

 

[-tkf-]

I think people need to take a step back and look at the rate of change in technology over a period of six years. It it definitely a very long time - I'm on an internet connection 25x faster that I had six years ago. I have no reason to believe I'll be on anything less than 25x what I have today by the time the next gen of consoles arrive. More likely, I'll see a much faster rate of change... if I remember correctly, there was a recent (lab) test of something like 1gb/s broadband file transfer. Now it's not quite consumer use, but people will laugh at 50gb in the same way hard drive users laughed at having 1tb five years ago - any many geeks do today.

In fact, I'd wager that by then, "wireless anywhere" will be the next big thing... so "digital distribution" will not necessarily be dependant on the customer's internet, and more on their location.

Just some food for thought.

Those that i know (not geeks) that have what they consider fat connections are on a 2mbit. And i seriously doubt that the internet providers will welcome 50GB downloads in big numbers, it´s easy to maintain a backbone with average users where you maybe have a few % of the users that really leech. Making something like this widespread so that it becomes the norm will strech the ISP´s backbones and without a doubt they will ask for a cut of the cake.

On a personal note, having a 100mbit connection it´s very rare that i actually see anything that comes close to those 100mbit. Few places have pipes right now that can handle that and there are bottleneck in alot of places. It´s just not feasible now or in the near future, and when it is we will have moved to UHD and larger media again

 

[bRoNx]

Unless I can click on a game and have it ready to play within, say, 30mins, then forget it! I don't have the patience to pay for something, then sit around for hours just for it to download. And in NZ, the top d/l speed is around 7mb/s, althought I've never seen it myself! So, unless broadband takes a major boost over the next 5-7yrs in NZ, you can forget about releasing a download only X720 here. The idea is pretty cool, but I just don't think the means are in place for it to be really effective worldwide.

 

[FireGoblin]

I reckon the '720' will come with no optical drive as standard - but with the option of plugging in an external drive unit (assuming MS aren't suicidal they'll ensure the 360 HD-DVD unit is compatible).

This will cover 'non-networked' and/or 'core' markets. For others, plug the external unit into your WHS, use an internal drive, or download, load up the binary and stream away.

The storage pipeline in the 720 would be interesting - the console would have to work with all different storage models - and probably be backwards compatible. But I'm sure it's feasible if the designers have it as a core function requirement.

 

[Graham]

Unless I can click on a game and have it ready to play within, say, 30mins, then forget it! I don't have the patience to pay for something, then sit around for hours just for it to download. And in NZ, the top d/l speed is around 7mb/s, althought I've never seen it myself! So, unless broadband takes a major boost over the next 5-7yrs in NZ, you can forget about releasing a download only X720 here. The idea is pretty cool, but I just don't think the means are in place for it to be really effective worldwide.

Depends
2 years ago we were on cable, maxing out at 2mbit. That was good speed back then. We are on 10mbit cable now. And we can actually hit that limit, ie ~1.25MB/sec. Once the government sits on telecom then things will speed up nicely for DSL users. Until then, go get cable
In 6 years I'd expect to see 100mbit in NZ at the bare minimum for the high end, maybe for mainstream. Heck, we just had fibre optic connection rolled out at work... Although it's total crap


As for the debate?

By the time it launches no one will be buying players that only play one format (unless one format bites it..) - and excluding the PS3... So it will have a player capable of both. And games will be installed, playing off disk would be nuts.
Think about how much a 20gb laptop drive would have cost 5 years ago when the original xbox came out... Now take that price, and compare it to what a ~500+gb hdd costs today. They probably are quite similar.
Of course the preferred method will be to download your games, although I'd bet the hdd will come full of unlockable trial games when you buy it. Most people only have 4 games in their rotation at most times. Keeping ~10-15 on the drive would work pretty well.

 

[-tkf-]

Of course the preferred method will be to download your games, although I'd bet the hdd will come full of unlockable trial games when you buy it. Most people only have 4 games in their rotation at most times. Keeping ~10-15 on the drive would work pretty well.

Very unlikely

Edit:

Guess a few arguments are in place:

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm?Page=5

The problem for most developers is not one of not getting paid enough once the game is out, it’s that they don’t have the seed funding necessary to internally fund development of their titles. That’s why they work for publishers on milestone schedules and advances against future royalties, and Steam offers no solution for that.

So if this should get through we will have a bunch of steam application from each publisher in our task bar.. awesome!

 

[archangelmorph]

Personally I don't think (and I hope) physical data storage will ever go away..

Imagine paying hundreds and hundreds of pounds building up an exhaustive game library only to see it entirely destroyed when your PS4's HDD goes bust/online storage acc goes tit's up..

Not to mention that fact that having games stored entirely online, or on a HDD will give massive headaches as the possibilities for piracy would be tremendous..

I dunno.. I think I just prefer having a "hard" copy of my data whether it be games, apps or any other form of digital software/media.. At least then you know you "own" it and are in complete control over the security and integrity of your data..

 

[PARANOiA]

Personally I don't think (and I hope) physical data storage will ever go away..

Imagine paying hundreds and hundreds of pounds building up an exhaustive game library only to see it entirely destroyed when your PS4's HDD goes bust/online storage acc goes tit's up..

Not to mention that fact that having games stored entirely online, or on a HDD will give massive headaches as the possibilities for piracy would be tremendous..

I dunno.. I think I just prefer having a "hard" copy of my data whether it be games, apps or any other form of digital software/media.. At least then you know you "own" it and are in complete control over the security and integrity of your data..

Yes, and some people insist on owning CD's rather than buying music online. But that market will shrink as the digital one grows.

I personally am with you in terms of liking something in my hand - but I don't think it'll be the cheapest (or best) option in half a decade.

 

[PARANOiA]

Unless I can click on a game and have it ready to play within, say, 30mins, then forget it! I don't have the patience to pay for something, then sit around for hours just for it to download. And in NZ, the top d/l speed is around 7mb/s, althought I've never seen it myself! So, unless broadband takes a major boost over the next 5-7yrs in NZ, you can forget about releasing a download only X720 here. The idea is pretty cool, but I just don't think the means are in place for it to be really effective worldwide.

What was the maximum download speed in NZ in 1999?