Is this the truth about Blu-ray Drives?

[Titanio]

Sony's evil strategy to keep HD-DVD from releasing earlier than Blu-ray media players.

First thing that came into my mind. Although judging by the comments of unnamed drive manufacturer, it'd only put them off by a few weeks at most, if they seal the deal at the next AACS meeting.

Re. PS3, "Spring" would appear to be a rather large window. A couple of weeks, or a months delay to the availability of AACS keys for hardware wouldn't push PS3 out of Spring. It'd only have affected PS3 if they were planning to launch in March, really.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Could PS3 be firmware (software?) updated with AACS support at a later date? Launch now, then update your PS3 to watch BRD movies?

 

[London Geezer]

Could PS3 be firmware (software?) updated with AACS support at a later date? Launch now, then update your PS3 to watch BRD movies?

Ouch. It could work, but it would definately look very uncool of them. (I couldn't find a better word than uncool, please substitute accordingly)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well it'd be better than delaying on account of a delayed standard I'd have thought. Perhaps when AACS is finalised they provide a free demo BRD to existing customers that installs the patch transparently, while giving the customers freebies. And it's not as though lack of AACS is going to show before then because there won't be BRD content until it's finalised. Just make sure the demo disk (or whatever) is out before the movies.

 

[London Geezer]

Well it'd be better than delaying on account of a delayed standard I'd have thought. Perhaps when AACS is finalised they provide a free demo BRD to existing customers that installs the patch transparently, while giving the customers freebies. And it's not as though lack of AACS is going to show before then because there won't be BRD content until it's finalised. Just make sure the demo disk (or whatever) is out before the movies.

Mmmm not very clueless-consumer-friendly... But i've seen worse to be honest.

I don't know if a software upgrade will do. It seems too easy.

 

[mckmas8808]

Well it'd be better than delaying on account of a delayed standard I'd have thought. Perhaps when AACS is finalised they provide a free demo BRD to existing customers that installs the patch transparently, while giving the customers freebies. And it's not as though lack of AACS is going to show before then because there won't be BRD content until it's finalised. Just make sure the demo disk (or whatever) is out before the movies.

Your right. And trust me the Japanese more than likely wouldn't care to much either. Hell the PS3 could launch with 2 games and it would sell out, so launching without AACS wouldn't be a HUGE lost. As long as they added it very soon after the launch and didn't wait 4 months.

 

[NavNucST3]

Well it'd be better than delaying on account of a delayed standard I'd have thought. Perhaps when AACS is finalised they provide a free demo BRD to existing customers that installs the patch transparently, while giving the customers freebies. And it's not as though lack of AACS is going to show before then because there won't be BRD content until it's finalised. Just make sure the demo disk (or whatever) is out before the movies.

Would it even need to be out before the movies, I thought one of the safeguard measures of these next-gen formats was that if "too many" players of a certain brand got hacked they could update the "do not play" list, isn't that stored somewhere. Couldn't they just include the update on all the movies...

I'll go read the spec, in its current form at least.

Keep in mind though this delay doesn't just stop hd-dvd from launching but it stops the ps3 from launching as well (if, as they say, will launch with full aacs support). Either way it has to make MSFT happy to be using dvd.

 

[scooby_dooby]

How the hell is it so hard to come up with finalized specs? Does this really need to take so long?

Too many stakeholders I guess...

 

[drpepper]

How the hell is it so hard to come up with finalized specs? Does this really need to take so long?

Too many stakeholders I guess...

Carpenters say, "measure twice, cut once." They have to get it right the first time around. They don't want to end up like they did before with DVD.

 

[mckmas8808]

Keep in mind though this delay doesn't just stop hd-dvd from launching but it stops the ps3 from launching as well (if, as they say, will launch with full aacs support). Either way it has to make MSFT happy to be using dvd.

Well not really. It shouldn't make them feel happier. They have already made their decision to come out months before the final specs were nailed down for HD-DVD and Blu-ray, so they shouldn't really care. But if this pushes the PS3 back, it will only push it back a few weeks to a month.

Not really a big deal when you factor in what positives it will bring in the long run.

 

[PG2G]

But if this pushes the PS3 back, it will only push it back a few weeks to a month.

The article says it could push back the launches of Spring players by a month or more, so where did you get that from? There isn't really anyway to know when this will be resolved. Hopefully sooner rather than later though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If they do release in September, won't that be a long time stockpiling? Could see record launchday availibility and sales if so which I'm sure the PR guys will exploit!

 

[mckmas8808]

The article says it could push back the launches of Spring players by a month or more, so where did you get that from? There isn't really anyway to know when this will be resolved. Hopefully sooner rather than later though.

Well I was going by what Titanio said in this quote....

First thing that came into my mind. Although judging by the comments of unnamed drive manufacturer, it'd only put them off by a few weeks at most, if they seal the deal at the next AACS meeting.

Re. PS3, "Spring" would appear to be a rather large window. A couple of weeks, or a months delay to the availability of AACS keys for hardware wouldn't push PS3 out of Spring. It'd only have affected PS3 if they were planning to launch in March, really.

See Blu-ray players were supposed to come out in April. If it pushes it back a month or two (I guess it could be more) then the PS3 could still come out in Spring. That was pretty much my point.

 

[PG2G]

Fair enough, it just seemed kinda odd that you had an upper limit for the delay time when there are so many unknowns.

 

[flf]

Never managed an actual shipping game or seen a project budget I assume.

Art is cheap.
Level/world creation is cheap.
Dumping content on a disc is cheap.

Engineers are expensive.
Technology is expensive.
A small subset of game art is expensive - like character models or vehicles in racing games.
Salary is usually up in the 70 percent range of most console projects. The majority of that high percentage is engineers and senior artists.

And you have managed a shipping game, I assume? Can you give us a list of titles that you have directly had a hand in producing? (Note that I make no claims about being a developer myself, I simply have an interest in this area and have kept abreast of Gamasutra and Gamedev articles for the past six years.)

Perhaps this gamasutra article will clear up some misconceptions:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040211/olsen_01.shtml

The difference in pay between experienced and non-experienced developers and artists can be large, but it should be obvious that the ranks of any developer are typically a couple leads, several experienced, and many low-to-mid level developers. As such, the high costs of the leads is often eclipsed by the raft of "low level" (in your own words) content developers.

Even if an employee *is* a low-level developer, it doesn't change the basic overhead that a company incurs to employ them: office space, benefits package costs, software tools costs, and hardware overhead. These costs fairly static per-employee.

And you also completely neglect that any developer of note will *NOT* tack on extra material in most cases if it is not up to the proper level of quality. I'm not sure how adding in more licensed music (that you pay to license) is a benefit since it simply drives your costs up without changing the general price you charge for the game. Plus, your assertions assume that there are people just lying about within a development company that don't have anything else to do but develop filler content to stuff a disc with. Show me a developer that has employees that are just idling about without a specific role in the project and I'll show you a company that won't exist next year.