The console losses discussion thread (or 'how companies blow billions on products')*

[patsu]

I'm not talking about how they evaluate the business. I'm talking about the public perception. Personally, I think DD for movies is a bad movie for Sony until BR is well established. Releasing it now will create doubts.

Yes, I share the same feeling. Looking at some of the leaked info, I think it may depend on how Sony package the service. This partly stems from how Sony sees the world. Let's see what they come up with first.

I always thought Blu-ray is part of the digital revolution. As long as they push Portable Copy and downloadable episodes, I think the line between online and offline distribution will blur.

 

[eastmen]

Sony's view is that there are room for both to survive. The HDM war is mostly coined to describe the skirmish between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Downloadable movies are mainly going after rental market and convenience. I believe HD movie download represents the minority right now (compared to SD downloads), but it can certainly increase over time.

but is surviving enough for them to recoup the massive amount of money they sunk into it ?

thats the question. We are assuming that sony wants to make moeny on bluray . What % of dvd sales is surving and how does that compare to the billions pumped into bluray and perhaps the billions of lost saleso n the playstation front to achive blurays status as surving

 

[patsu]

Their finance will have the necessary numbers. Without any concrete info, I don't think anyone outside Sony can argue effectively either way. Sony's execs have commented on Blu-ray's ground issues on several occasions. So they are not oblivious to the risks and pitfalls.

In similar vein, many digital download services have failed before, so the risk there is also high. The DRM'ed content may become an issue when the parent services die. Nonetheless the execs are there to make the numbers.

 

[eastmen]

thats hte point , we really have no evidance that they will make the numbers. I'm sure sony already knows how much bluray has cost them and continues to cost them (i'm sure its not profitable yet ) and what it will take to recoup the money. Saying that bluray doesn't have to become the next dominate format for them to recoup that cost is a very hard thing to picture. Remember sony only makes a small percentage off disc sales . They will have to sell alot of discs to recoup bluray's cost

 

[patsu]

thats hte point , we really have no evidance that they will make the numbers. I'm sure sony already knows how much bluray has cost them and continues to cost them (i'm sure its not profitable yet ) and what it will take to recoup the money. Saying that bluray doesn't have to become the next dominate format for them to recoup that cost is a very hard thing to picture. Remember sony only makes a small percentage off disc sales . They will have to sell alot of discs to recoup bluray's cost

Well... we have no evidence either way. All we know is PS3 is driving the market, Blu-ray production is filled and stepped up, movie and player prices are still high, there are more sales when the price is lowered during promos, so the demand is there.

Key BDA members will want Blu-ray to become a dominant format. They will try to make sure it becomes a dominant format. But given how successful DVD is, the Sony execs admitted in an interview that they don't have any illusion to achieve the same level of success.

This is the type of new opportunities a large company like Sony should go after. Otherwise, they'd be competing with the low cost device makers over chump change.

 

[-tkf-]

thats hte point , we really have no evidance that they will make the numbers. I'm sure sony already knows how much bluray has cost them and continues to cost them (i'm sure its not profitable yet ) and what it will take to recoup the money. Saying that bluray doesn't have to become the next dominate format for them to recoup that cost is a very hard thing to picture. Remember sony only makes a small percentage off disc sales . They will have to sell alot of discs to recoup bluray's cost

Blu-Ray is going to be here for a very long time and i think it will grow up to compete with DVD, it´s in every movie and hardware companies interest, as time goes by the numbers will back it up and all naysayers will have moved on to something different .

The question for Sony would be how much they would risk by not winning the war, it could easily have turned out to be much more that they possible could lose by winning it.

Download services have one thing in common, they all primarily compete against rental. If they want to become a real threat they have to agree on standards so that you can move your purchases from one supplier/platform to another. Also, snowmen are hard to keep up in hell...

 

[eastmen]

Blu-Ray is going to be here for a very long time and i think it will grow up to compete with DVD, it´s in every movie and hardware companies interest, as time goes by the numbers will back it up and all naysayers will have moved on to something different .

The question for Sony would be how much they would risk by not winning the war, it could easily have turned out to be much more that they possible could lose by winning it.

Download services have one thing in common, they all primarily compete against rental. If they want to become a real threat they have to agree on standards so that you can move your purchases from one supplier/platform to another. Also, snowmen are hard to keep up in hell...

You really have no proof of this at all . Saying that bluray will be here for a long very long time doesn't make it true.

At the same time you guys are casualy swiping away the billions of dollars its cost sony to push this format .


I'm not here to start a war about this but you guys sound like a broken record and have no proof of anything. the format isn't even gaining ground on dvd

 

[obonicus]

You really have no proof of this at all . Saying that bluray will be here for a long very long time doesn't make it true.

If anything, what he said is a truism.

At the same time you guys are casualy swiping away the billions of dollars its cost sony to push this format .

No one's doing that. In fact, what people have been discussing in this thread is exactly that: how much it cost for Sony to win the HD war using the PS3 and if it was worth risking their lead in the console business.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If anything, what he said is a truism.

Because you say so? Because a few corporate execs want it to be so? With the level of acceptance blu-ray has now something new could wipe it away in a heartbeat and the majority of the population would have completely forgotten it ever existed (assuming they knew in the first place) within a couple years. Consumers ultimately decide what formats live and die.

I don't think that it's going to disappear, it looks like it will have its niche for at least a while but the possibility always exists. Whether it will grow or not is another argument.

 

[-tkf-]

Because you say so? Because a few corporate execs want it to be so? With the level of acceptance blu-ray has now something new could wipe it away in a heartbeat and the majority of the population would have completely forgotten it ever existed (assuming they knew in the first place) within a couple years. Consumers ultimately decide what formats live and die.

I don't think that it's going to disappear, it looks like it will have its niche for at least a while but the possibility always exists. Whether it will grow or not is another argument.

A few corporate executives is in this case the movie industry and pretty much every company that sells CE products, except Toshiba of course, they are betting on upscaling DVD players. I think that is a pretty impressive few executives

Something "new" would have to be backed by the same few executives.. and they like their money milking aproach whch earned them so much money on DVD.

 

[AlphaWolf]

A few corporate executives is in this case the movie industry and pretty much every company that sells CE products, except Toshiba of course, they are betting on upscaling DVD players. I think that is a pretty impressive few executives

Something "new" would have to be backed by the same few executives.. and they like their money milking aproach whch earned them so much money on DVD.

All of those same executives still back DVD and DD to some degree.

 

[obonicus]

Because you say so? Because a few corporate execs want it to be so? With the level of acceptance blu-ray has now something new could wipe it away in a heartbeat and the majority of the population would have completely forgotten it ever existed (assuming they knew in the first place) within a couple years. Consumers ultimately decide what formats live and die.

I don't think that it's going to disappear, it looks like it will have its niche for at least a while but the possibility always exists. Whether it will grow or not is another argument.

Because other, less successful formats have stuck around for a long time. Minidisc still lingers around, if just barely. You can still buy SACD or DVD Audio. Hell, even UMD still has a few releases. It doesn't mean anything to say that BD is going to be around for a long time, because it's trivially true. It says nothing of its success or the size of the market. It can stick around for years and have an ever-dwindling userbase, it can be relegated to an entirely new, much smaller niche and it'd still be true.

Unless you have some reason to believe that unlike these other failed formats it'd suddenly be yanked from market. And spare us the 'there's a possibility' talk, because that too is trivially true. There's a possibility that DD will only not overcome other delivery mechanisms but that it'll crash and burn, but we're not discussing that, either. (And HD-DVD isn't really a counterexample.)

 

[eastmen]

All of those same executives still back DVD and DD to some degree.

not only that but a portion of them supported hd -dvd and we saw how that did . Disney also supported divx back in the day . Then again some supported beta , some supported dvd audio

nothing is a sure bet and something just has to come along thats popular and bang thats it.

Personaly I'm betting in two years we start to see high def flash based players. You'd save at least the space of the disc drive so they will already start off smaller than the bluray stand alone players. its flash based so you don't about scratching and it will play thousands of times before there is a problem. Retail space foot print will be reduced so retailers wont be affraid to stock it. You also have adjustable space. You have a movie that needs 16 gigs only with some extras bang you got it , you need 32 gigs (higher than hd dvds max capacity) you got it and i'm sure in the future 64 gigs and a 128 gigs will come down in cost . They will only need keep future capacitys in mind while producing the first players. I think with 256 gig capacity they will be fine in terms of movies sizes . You can put a whole season of heroes at 1080p on a 128 gigs and it doesn't have to be any bigger than a thumb . Not only that but on the same flash media your pc will be able to play it with out requiring an upgrade drive , its much much better for watching movies in a car than bluray or any disc based format could ever be. in 2 years i'm sure the current codecs can be much improved and on the same format you can simply plug the flash drive into your pc and it can ask you if you want a copy of it and in what format , psp , zune , ipod and the pc can convert it for you or they can just put it on the flash drive itself .

I actually believe in the next decade flash drives will replace disc basaed solutions for the pc . I can already buy a 16 gig sd card for $35-40 bucks on rebate. By the holidays i'm sure that will be down to $20-25 bucks and i'm sure the 32 gig cards will be about $60 bucks . In 2 years i'm sure we will see a 128 gig sd cards. Now i'm sure that pariot or adata don't buy the 16 gig chips at anywhere near $35 bucks either . So cost will just keep droping

However the point is you don't know whats coming from out of no where or what can suddenly take a huge jump in popularity , just look at the wii and what it did

 

[obonicus]

not only that but a portion of them supported hd -dvd and we saw how that did . Disney also supported divx back in the day . Then again some supported beta , some supported dvd audio

nothing is a sure bet and something just has to come along thats popular and bang thats it.

There's no reason for studios to drop support, or not to support both now that the HD war is over. Studios would like nothing more than having you buy their movies more than once, even if it's for something as tenuous as 'uncompressed sound' or 'Full-HD'.

Personaly I'm betting in two years we start to see high def flash based players. You'd save at least the space of the disc drive so they will already start off smaller than the bluray stand alone players. its flash based so you don't about scratching and it will play thousands of times before there is a problem. Retail space foot print will be reduced so retailers wont be affraid to stock it. You also have adjustable space. You have a movie that needs 16 gigs only with some extras bang you got it , you need 32 gigs (higher than hd dvds max capacity) you got it and i'm sure in the future 64 gigs and a 128 gigs will come down in cost . They will only need keep future capacitys in mind while producing the first players. I think with 256 gig capacity they will be fine in terms of movies sizes . You can put a whole season of heroes at 1080p on a 128 gigs and it doesn't have to be any bigger than a thumb . Not only that but on the same flash media your pc will be able to play it with out requiring an upgrade drive , its much much better for watching movies in a car than bluray or any disc based format could ever be. in 2 years i'm sure the current codecs can be much improved and on the same format you can simply plug the flash drive into your pc and it can ask you if you want a copy of it and in what format , psp , zune , ipod and the pc can convert it for you or they can just put it on the flash drive itself .

I actually believe in the next decade flash drives will replace disc basaed solutions for the pc . I can already buy a 16 gig sd card for $35-40 bucks on rebate. By the holidays i'm sure that will be down to $20-25 bucks and i'm sure the 32 gig cards will be about $60 bucks . In 2 years i'm sure we will see a 128 gig sd cards. Now i'm sure that pariot or adata don't buy the 16 gig chips at anywhere near $35 bucks either . So cost will just keep droping

Off-topic, but in other topics where you've brought up flash-based storage replacing optical people have brought up the problems with this idea.

 

[dobwal]

not only that but a portion of them supported hd -dvd and we saw how that did . Disney also supported divx back in the day . Then again some supported beta , some supported dvd audio

nothing is a sure bet and something just has to come along thats popular and bang thats it.

Personaly I'm betting in two years we start to see high def flash based players. You'd save at least the space of the disc drive so they will already start off smaller than the bluray stand alone players. its flash based so you don't about scratching and it will play thousands of times before there is a problem. Retail space foot print will be reduced so retailers wont be affraid to stock it. You also have adjustable space. You have a movie that needs 16 gigs only with some extras bang you got it , you need 32 gigs (higher than hd dvds max capacity) you got it and i'm sure in the future 64 gigs and a 128 gigs will come down in cost . They will only need keep future capacitys in mind while producing the first players. I think with 256 gig capacity they will be fine in terms of movies sizes . You can put a whole season of heroes at 1080p on a 128 gigs and it doesn't have to be any bigger than a thumb . Not only that but on the same flash media your pc will be able to play it with out requiring an upgrade drive , its much much better for watching movies in a car than bluray or any disc based format could ever be. in 2 years i'm sure the current codecs can be much improved and on the same format you can simply plug the flash drive into your pc and it can ask you if you want a copy of it and in what format , psp , zune , ipod and the pc can convert it for you or they can just put it on the flash drive itself .

I actually believe in the next decade flash drives will replace disc basaed solutions for the pc . I can already buy a 16 gig sd card for $35-40 bucks on rebate. By the holidays i'm sure that will be down to $20-25 bucks and i'm sure the 32 gig cards will be about $60 bucks . In 2 years i'm sure we will see a 128 gig sd cards. Now i'm sure that pariot or adata don't buy the 16 gig chips at anywhere near $35 bucks either . So cost will just keep droping

However the point is you don't know whats coming from out of no where or what can suddenly take a huge jump in popularity , just look at the wii and what it did

Instead of flash based players I see the the media itself becoming flash based. Selling movies on flash drives eliminate some of the technical issues faced by flash based drives and thats their limited write/erase cycles.

All it takes is reducing the cost of the drives down to near the cost of optical based media and its a media thats more suitable for the future than BluRay. Plus you don't need dedicated players. Manufacturer can take existing products and incorporate the ability to play off a flash drive. The range of products can incorporate flash drive media is alot wider than anything possible with optical media all the way from portable players to huge entertainment centers.

Furthermore, flash based media eliminates the need for manufacturers to accomodated for large flash drives or HDDs that would drive up the BOM of their players and could allow a smoother transition to a flash dominated market without huge up front costs dump on the consumers.

How much effort would it take to get the 360 and PS3 to support flash based movies? Little to none and the same would be true for the majority of the rest of the market. Plus, digital downloads are a bigger market than BluRay and flash based media could be incorporated into this market real easy.

Come to think of it, games coming on flash drives would make a lot of sense. Streaming from a flash drive is a hell of alot faster then streaming off a BluRay disk. .

If you had a game console that used flash based media it would be awfully cheap manufacturing wise, as you don't need an optical drive and you could incorporate the most economical HDD as possible as you could simply allow most the downloadable games, movies, game saves or other media to download onto regular flash drives. You might be able to forego a HDD all together, further dropping BOM costs.

It would be equivalent to having a 360 arcade minus a DVD drive with each game coming on it own HDD.

 

[patsu]

I don't think that it's going to disappear, it looks like it will have its niche for at least a while but the possibility always exists. Whether it will grow or not is another argument.

Yeah, some (many ?) people are waiting for Blu-ray movies and players to go cheaper. For now, it's still in the early adopter market due to the high price. The demand seems to be there given HD DVD's "cheap player" marketing exercises earlier on. The recent BDA activities in China is encouraging in the sense that they have started to incent Chinese vendors to make Blu-ray players.

Blu-ray is a hardware + software stack. They are also talking about 3D movies (I think one 3D movie was released but I am not sure). All these talks about Flash movies, portable player/movies can also be achieved by enabling Portable Copy and Managed Copy on Blu-ray. For example, they can distribute the entire season of TV shows on 1 disc and enable them episode by episode so you don't have to downloads the entire season (incrementally). In addition, I remember Blu-ray movie vending/rental machines have also been announced, etc.

Once enough momentum has been built, the standard will take a life of its own. I would not be surprised if BDA uses similar software stacks (Profile 2.x, 3 and above) for mobile players, cable settop boxes, Flash, etc. The critical mass of Blu-ray players out there can be an attractive way to anchor new media standards (assuming compatible with the Java VM + 1 Gb persistent memory in BD-Live).

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I actually believe in the next decade flash drives will replace disc basaed solutions for the pc . I can already buy a 16 gig sd card for $35-40 bucks on rebate. By the holidays i'm sure that will be down to $20-25 bucks and i'm sure the 32 gig cards will be about $60 bucks . In 2 years i'm sure we will see a 128 gig sd cards. Now i'm sure that pariot or adata don't buy the 16 gig chips at anywhere near $35 bucks either . So cost will just keep droping

Not sure if youve seen this, or have any interest of it, but there is a topic about this in the tech forum.

 

[Mintmaster]

Off-topic, but in other topics where you've brought up flash-based storage replacing optical people have brought up the problems with this idea.

I think it could make a lot more sense with movies than the games industry. With consoles, flash games don't really provide any benefit but have a large cost over optical.

The biggest reason it could take off is that there isn't any chicken-and-egg problem. Almost every computer sold in the last few years can play the movies. Lots of CE devices already play movies and other media from flash, but just don't have HD ability yet (it'll be here soon). It's a great solution for people bringing laptops on a train or plane.

We're getting pretty OT, but IMO its possible.

 

[-tkf-]

not only that but a portion of them supported hd -dvd and we saw how that did . Disney also supported divx back in the day . Then again some supported beta , some supported dvd audio

nothing is a sure bet and something just has to come along thats popular and bang thats it.

Personaly I'm betting in two years we start to see high def flash based players. You'd save at least the space of the disc drive so they will already start off smaller than the bluray stand alone players. its flash based so you don't about scratching and it will play thousands of times before there is a problem. Retail space foot print will be reduced so retailers wont be affraid to stock it. You also have adjustable space. You have a movie that needs 16 gigs only with some extras bang you got it , you need 32 gigs (higher than hd dvds max capacity) you got it and i'm sure in the future 64 gigs and a 128 gigs will come down in cost . They will only need keep future capacitys in mind while producing the first players. I think with 256 gig capacity they will be fine in terms of movies sizes . You can put a whole season of heroes at 1080p on a 128 gigs and it doesn't have to be any bigger than a thumb . Not only that but on the same flash media your pc will be able to play it with out requiring an upgrade drive , its much much better for watching movies in a car than bluray or any disc based format could ever be. in 2 years i'm sure the current codecs can be much improved and on the same format you can simply plug the flash drive into your pc and it can ask you if you want a copy of it and in what format , psp , zune , ipod and the pc can convert it for you or they can just put it on the flash drive itself .

I actually believe in the next decade flash drives will replace disc basaed solutions for the pc . I can already buy a 16 gig sd card for $35-40 bucks on rebate. By the holidays i'm sure that will be down to $20-25 bucks and i'm sure the 32 gig cards will be about $60 bucks . In 2 years i'm sure we will see a 128 gig sd cards. Now i'm sure that pariot or adata don't buy the 16 gig chips at anywhere near $35 bucks either . So cost will just keep droping

However the point is you don't know whats coming from out of no where or what can suddenly take a huge jump in popularity , just look at the wii and what it did

Maybe its a question of thinking rationally..?
Will HD keep on growing and at some point in time completely take over SD televisions?

Will there be an ever growing demand for HD material for these HD tv sets?

What is the only unified and broadly supported format that can do this?

For a flash based media to compete it would have to be as cheap as stamping Holes in plastic, it would have to be as unified as Blu-Ray is now (every movie studio and CE manufactor). Very unlikely in the near future.
Not to mention that if such a format saw the light in the next five years, it would have to compete with... Blu-Ray

I would prefer a flash based media, it´s just not around the corner....

I think your comparisons to DiVX and WII is somewhat flawed. Divx was never widely supported (thank god) and the WII is a console not a movie format.

 

[eastmen]

Not sure if youve seen this, or have any interest of it, but there is a topic about this in the tech forum.

thanks for the link , i will read it