That is a huge assumption at this point. It was one I openly agreed with over a year ago, but as it stands right now Blu-ray isn't in a position to outright beat HD DVD let alone be crowned the heir to DVD.
HD display adoption has grown but is still a minority of the market and DVD player sales are still massive. HD DVD has also made a major play over the last couple months--first with the Paramount and Dreamworks defections, and now hitting the value market at $198 at Walmart.
On a totally different tangent (nothing to do with Nesh) is I have owned a PlayStation, never owned an Xbox, have not purchased an Xbox 360, have lamented Halo's gameplay mechanics as "old school" which I don't prefer at all, have never received anything free from Sony/MS/Nintendo/ATI/Nvidia/Intel/AMD, and am a full-time student working in a factory of all places. My opinions aren't always right, but my Blu-ray comments aren't because I work for MS (that would pay much, much better!). Whether every point is of equal value, the bottom-line is that the PS3 has failed to generate the marketshare expected by most analysts (and PS1/PS2 market expectations) and much of this has to do with delays and cost inflation related to Blu-ray.
There is no arguement against the fact Blu-ray adoption has been relatively slow and that a PS3 launched at $200 cheaper ($299/$399) in 2006 without Blu-ray would be doing significantly better in console marketshare than it has to this point, especially in the light of RROD by the competition, than the PS3 is doing right now. Blu-ray hasn't been a major catalyst for PS3 sales and makes the machine significantly more expensive to manufacture which inturn inflates the retail price. And my general point has been I see no reason, especially in the face of MS's RROD, that Sony could not have created a Cell based console that could be well on pace to repeat the PS2's success. Blu-ray isn't completely to blame, but it is a factor.
I am sorry and I beg your pardon Joshua Luna, I did not intend to make unsubstantiated claims about your position in the argument and I admit to at the time I was typing my reply to your post, to being rather tired after a long day of reading and as a result I ended up posting that last paragraph without properly thinking about it as I always try to.
Anyways I hope to continue to talk or debate our points so I will get to that now.
I understand what you are talking about and I myself hold no bias, or at least I try to but we are talking about video game consoles and the transition that they went through specially in the 1990s as certain companies braved into a new storage medium, not just as a way of gaining more storage but as a way of cutting costs down.
NEC and Sega made their attempts, I know and understand that as Shifty Geezer said they were never mainstream devices as fact, I mean after all the Sega Genesis and more so the Super Nintendo was at that time the mainstream in videogames while CD media was being used else where mainly for music.
One of my points in saying that "we should not forget" had to do with that even though years later Sony and Sega released their CD based consoles there were at least 5 previous attempts and they matter because without those attempts Sony would never have been able to release their PS1 and Sega would have released a cartridge based console follow up to the Genesis instead.
Another point is that needs to be taken into consideration is that specially back then prior to 1994, Nintendo dominated Japan most of the US afaik while Sega and NEC with their PC Engine/Turbo Graphix console were barely able to gain acceptance in sales, hence why those companies seemed to release these CD addons first and Nintendo took so long to do so resulting in them kind of forcing Sony to the console market unintentionally as it really was not in Sony's initial intention to do so.
The main purpose those CD addons and first failed stand alone CD consoles were made were to cut costs and again part of my other point that I would like to make is that as opposed to what we know now, Sony did not simply ride into success with Playstation 1, in fact it took them many years and competitor's mistakes (Sega) for them to get the sales and success.
I mean if we were having this argument back in 1996 we would not be able to really call Sony a riding success as Sega's Saturn was enjoying sales in Japan while Nintendo was still dominant with SNES and the N64 being just released.
Prior to PS2's arrival, videogame culture was very different, it was centered mainly in videogames, I know that the percentage of people who actually purchased videogame magazines was and is insignificant to the mainstream audience as I am sure some one will say but PS2 was a major factor in adding adoption of DVD as a format.
Sure, DVD players enjoyed sales in the millions but do you remember how it was when you went into stores back then? I used to go to several major malls in my area (New England states) and 1998, 1999, 2000 were pretty much the same, DVD held a small section while the rest of the stores was filled to the brim with VHS movies and DVD as a player and as movies were very expensive then.
Then in 2001 in the summer I started to notice the trend that DVD movie prices started to fall to acceptable levels, $20.00 USD, the release of Star Wars Episode I on DVD was nigh at or around that price level and I had yet to purchase a PS2 mainly because I refused to do so but I also was aware that videogame culture it self was also changing.
The people who were purchasing PS2s in 2000 and 2001 knew very well that the console can also be used as a movie player, you just don't go and spend $300 USD while being a gamer and not know what you are getting into, the DVD logo was all over the box and everybody was talking about it, those first 10 million or so, and lets just say specifically those millions in the USA in 2001 knew very well that they could purchase a DVD movie, rent a DVD movie or borrow from a friend, its true that we do not have an actual credible and reliable means to get data on this as the internet is subject to articles being twisted to the writters opinion on what numbers matter but we have to have a way of knowing what were the best selling DVD movie titles for that 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 period to notice that PS2 users must have really contributed to those DVD sales.
As I previously mentioned, many videogame magazines started to include DVD movie reviews and reccomendations, if you have any please do so but that counts as free advertising for a product that the videogame audience most likely were to also purchase, specially given the low number of inital worthwhile and quality videogame titles on the PS2's first two years.
I do admit though that with Blu Ray we are not going to see a surge in adoption or sales, then again very few video game magazines and video game sites even reccomend BR movie titles and then again maybe it does not matter since there is such an wide anti-Sony, anti-PS3, anti-Blu Ray sentiment on most of the internet (depending where you go) filled with strong idealistic opinions but Sony's plan cannot be disputed, they used the Blu Ray format as a replacement to DVD storage, we all know that video games take time to make, even the worst titles so at least we know that Sony's plan is strategically placed in years time, and the current 5 million world wide is not a bad start in your first year.
Does that mean that people are going to flock to buy BR movies, I don't think so, as a matter of fact, whats the ration of people who buy full screen DVD as opposed to wide screen DVD titles? and HDTVs are still far from being mainstream so that again will take time, I still have my old 27" Sony Trinitron I purchased in 1996 and just don't feel compelled to go into HDTVs even though I am a wide screen addict when it comes to my movies, my PC monitor is still CRT, though at least its a 21" HP workstation monitor I purchased from a PC warehouse
Also the reliance of Downloadable content, or Digital Distribution in your argument can be countered by the main reason a magazine or a group of Consumer Reports exists. This Digital Distribution content (DDC) has alot of major potential problems
1) It has to be stored, where else but in a Hard Drive and we all know how reliable a HDD is compared to a VHS, CD, DVD, BR, HD-DVD and even Laser Disc.
2) Usage rights, what do you think will happen when a customer is forced to only use and or rely on that one device to view their content?
3) Not portable to other devices and or places, ie, lets go to a (insert person of interest here)'s house and watch our DDC
4) Will you have enough space to store your DDC?
5) Will you actually Delete your DDC as a way generate new space?
6) The same problems can apply if we take videogames into the equation.
There are more things I could say but thats it for now I don't want to make this post any longer, but just think that now it really does seem like Blu Ray is not such a good idea as opposed to DVD, the PS3 however is using the format as a storage medium for videogames that will take time to arrive. Microsoft decided against using HD DVD as a videogame storage format and they are intent on Digital Distribution Content, the problem with that is that their base console does not include a HDD, the one that actually does include it is limited to 20GB and the one that offers the most space in 120GB is priced too close to the PS3.
What it all comes down to it is that its possible a new Microsoft console will be needed, with a much bigger hard drive so that people can store all their games and movies in the DDC format, after all people are not made of money and they will have to choose, but customer backlash against a faulty product or one that fails is not something to mess around with.
