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Sony Pushes Back Release For Blu-Ray Players
Sony has announced that their first model of Blu-Ray player will release in August, not later this month as originally announced. The BDP-SP1, retailing for $1000, will now ship on or about August 15th. Bad news for fans of the new format, and even worse news for the PS3. Since Sony's lackluster E3 showing, a string of bad news has seemed to conspire against the company's next-gen console. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "With the PS3's high-end model coming it at a whopping $400.00 less than a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, Sony needs to release these players as soon as possible. If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit. Sony also needs the largest possible installed base, come launch-time for the PS3. For the Blu-Ray player to be the PS3's version of the PS2's DVD player, casual technophiles need to be able to see the virtues of the Blu-Ray format. If there are few players, and few titles, this might not happen."
My friend bought a first generation DVD player and it's still functioning to this day. I think it even has some of the codecs built into it (MP3, AVIs, etc.). His PS2's DVD functionality went out long ago. And that was after he participated in the first recall.
Buy a game console for its games. Buy a media player for its media playing abilities. Let's stop encouraging the console makers to bloat their consoles. Concentrate on one thing and--for the love of the game--get it right!
My work here is dung.
Sony has been very disappointing recently. I don't know what's wrong with their business side of things...their decisions with music services, the quality of their products, and especially playing 'copy-cat' don't seem to make much sense.
I love the smell of a corporate implosion in the morning.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
With the XBox 360 out and doing well and Nintendo realeasing soon with a great prices... will Sony recover from this? I just don't see any excitement around the next Playstation... all I hear is bad news.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Am I the only one who thinks that the era of Sony's console dominance (they 0wned everyone with the PS1 & PS2) is finally coming to an end because of their insistance on packaging Blu Ray with the PS3?
I won't be buying anymore Sony junk, period. I don't care if it is late or not.
Addition by subtraction. A dual-layer DVD drive can hold near 10 gigs - more than enough for 1080i/1080p games. PC games have been at this resolution for years - most still fit on 3 CD's or less.
Do the right thing Sony. If you want the PS3 to thrive, cut the price in half and let the lower-end model use Dual-Layer discs.
Gamers don't care about blu-ray, home theater enthusiasts will buy a professional player. Ditch it. No way I'm buying a PS3 for the price of a 360, a Wii, and games.
Though Sony's stand-alone is being delayed until August, Samsung has a standalone Blu-Ray player coming out on June 25th.
Panasonic has one coming in September. Sony's lateness is not the sole barometer for the standard's success or failure.
Any news on how the PS3 is affecting 3rd party hardware manufacturers for Blu-ray? I can't imagine they'd appreciate the PS3 undercutting them by $400. However, it does raise the question of what features they will be implementing to make their hardware worth that extra money. For my dollar, they better be implementing something absolutely incredible.
So how is the delay of a Blu-Ray player bad for the PS3? It seems to me that the only effect would be to actually help the pS3 by having external Blu-Ray players still very expensive when they launch the PS3.
Now if Blu-Ray drives themselves cause the PS3 delivery date to be pushed back, that would actually be a problem. When we see that news the headlined may apply. Until then, this is just more sensationalist FUD about Sony who has become Zonk's favorite whipping boy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It seems logical to me: HD DVD released so silent that in europe no 'normal' (= not online > 5 hrs a day) people heared of it. I don't even know if it is on the market here.
:)
Also there are very few titles availabe for HD DVD. Maybe they do this on purpose because people cannot see yet that there are a lot of other 'big releases' missing, not all studios signed up for hd dvd.
I think that sony is waiting to have more titles available, so they can make a big release.
Does the Playstation 3 record BD's?
No, so stop comparing it to 1000 dollar players, you noobs
"If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit."
Couldn't that be Sony's strategy? They know all the bad press the PS3 has been getting so all they have to do is make it more attractive as a Blu-Ray player than the stand-alones. This kills 2 birds with 1 stone; it get's people buying the PS3 for games and for the Blu-ray capabilities. Either way, they win.
What comes around, well, comes around.
Is it just me, or could this be a plausible marketing ploy? Sony wants the biggest install base of the PS3 as possible to make some money, and have better market penetration than the 360 or Wii. What if they're releasing a high priced player closer to the window of the launch of the PS3 on purpose? If you had your choice between a box that did Blu Ray for $1000, or a box that did Blu Ray + lots of other stuff, for $600, a lot of non-elitist consumers are going to go with the cheaper bargain. It's entirely possible that sony is releasing an over priced blu ray player now (btw, $1000? I can get a HD-DVD drive for under $200!), to increase adoption of the ps3 by the "I love HD, but my pocket book hates it" crowd.
Remember that these drives require HDCP compliant monitors and grafik cards to watch anything in HD if Sony decides to implement HDCP on their DVDs, which will happen sooner than later. Not sure if there are more than a few out there. All the early adaptors with their expensive HDTVs will get screwed. Really, there is no need for these, double sided DVDs are large enough for feature length movies.
Of course, as even the linked article admits, Samsung's blu-ray player is still due out at the end of this month, at the same time the first round of blu-ray discs are.
Since unlike UMDs and other failed "Sony" formats of the past, Blu-Ray is not propreitary, it doesn't matter when Sony gets their player out. The Blu-Ray does not succeed or fall based on Sony alone; Sony delaying their personal player for six months makes no difference. While surely having two blu-ray players out at format launch would have been better than one from a consumer perspective, Sony's delay means effectively nothing except that early adopters interested in blu-ray will be buying a Samsung instead.
But hey, Zonk's never let little things like facts get in the way of his constant proclamations of doom and death for Sony and everything connected to them. So whatever. Rootkit rootkit rootkit $599 lol.
That the key to dominating is "excellence in conformity?" The key to beating your competition is to build up a standard, then trash your competition at implementing it. Who wants to be limited to all Sony? No one who wants to do something as "lame" as borrowing a next gen DVD from a friend.
I am sick of Sony trying to control the format of . They keep trying to use their sheer bulk to force us to use their latest tech (see their music player history for an example). I know Sony is capable of producing a quality product that I would love to use, but they just keep shooting themselves in the foot (UMD anyone?). Now they want to try to shove a heavily DRM'd format down our throats and make us like it (and they dont even seem to be able to put out a proper product). I wish consumers would wake up and grow some self control (I have to admit to being the first in line occasionally). If you stop buying products that contain objectionable components (whatever your hot button issue is DRM, porn, violence) then the companies will stop making it. Consumers need to stop "compromising" with companies. Give us a product that we want 100%.
"A luxury once experienced becomes a necessity".
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
Ah, the Sony-astroturfer. I would have thought E3 would have made that an extinct species, but...
* Plays 1080p HD BluRay movies over component cables
Nope. 1080p requires HDMI, and the affordable PS3 doesn't support that. Not that it matters, because no one has a 1080p TV. Hell, my computer monitor can't do 1080p, and it's far more advanced than my TV. HDTV has a miserably small install base, and 1080p-capable installs are a tiny fraction of that.
* Plays 1080p games - yes the PS3 is powerful enough there are already 1080p games
See above. No one cares about 1080p, because the 1080p install base is tiny.
* All the same exclusive games that 103+ million people bought Playstation 2s for
Until, of course, the companies realize no one is buying PS3s are re-releases them for the Wii or the XBox360.
* Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation games
* Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation 2 games
Yeah, just like the PS2 has "complete backwards compatibility". Except, of course, for the games that it didn't work with.
* Free online play for all non-MMORPG games
Yeah, not having a coherent online infrastructure kinda helps with that. What exactly does Sony plan on offering online, again? Anyone know?
* Linux
Yeah, a heavily crippled version. Especially considering that half the PS3's memory is useless to Linux thanks to the 16MB/s read speed.
* Webbrowsing in 1080p on your HD TV or monitor and other desktop apps
See above for the number of people that have a 1080p TV. See WebTV for how well that works otherwise. No one wants to browse the web from their TV. It sucks.
* Tilt controller
You mean the less-useful version of the Wii Remote, the one without force feedback, the one with poor battery life, the one that prevents more than one PS3 from being used in a given range? Yeah, I'm really sold on that.
Compared to the 200-250 Wii which looks to be fun at parties but will have graphics as crappy as the 360
I don't care about graphics. I love my new DS Lite, and its graphics are barely N64-level.
Or the Xbox 360 which will end up costing you over 700 bucks for the non-worthless version at 399 + 50 bucks a year over four to five years just to play online.
Given that the expected retail price for the non-worthless version of the PS3 places it at $650-$700 (due to abysmal yields), that sounds like a bargain! $700 will get you a useful PS3 and maybe a game or another controller.
Face it, fanboi, the PS3 is going to be an abysmal failure. $700 may be "cheap for a Blu-Ray player" but I don't want a fucking Blu-Ray player. I want something like the Nintendo Wii.
after you install a game off 3 cd's ... it eats up more hard drive space since the files on CD are compressed, and then demands that the disc be in the drive to run even though the entire fucking thing is on the hard drive, meaning that if the CD gets ruined, the software won't run, which means that you have to seek out and download and install a patch that will keep this stupidity from happening, for every bloody game you install
... programmers, wake up!
I've done this for everything I've got and I don't feel bad about it not one bit. The originals sit safely in their cases, no scratches involved. But geez
Rant over.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Sony has a hitsory of making up non-standard proprietary formats. These
include the (a) memory stick, (b) the customized (non-standard) firewire port,
(c) the universal
operating system of the AIBO, (d) the minidisc and, of course, (e) betamax. No doubt, there are other I can't think of or don't know about.
In almost every case, they are either failures or (worse) sources of ongoing frustration.
I thought Blu-ray had promise, but not I realize it is another one of these monstrosities. Maybe it had better just die as quickly as possible to spare us being burdeneed with it for ages.
(like the memory stick -- an extra format we never needed).
I think Sony's biggest problem with getting widespread adoption of Blu-Ray is that the vast majority of users are happy with the current DVD format. The improvement from VHS to DVD was obvious. Replacing your DVD collection with an expensive Blu-Ray collection that may never catch on with most people seems ludicrous. People might find Blu-Ray equipment in the closet with their Betamax VCRs and their old minidisc players.
Half of the points you made are irrelevant until the consoles have actually been out for a couple years. Look at the first few titles for the GC, and then at the ones that have been coming out recently. MUCH improvement. Personally, I'm not really seeing that with the PS2. In fact, I'm seeing GC games that look better than PS2 games. And your 8000+ backcatalog points.... you've apparently forgot about the Wii's backcatalog of NES, SNES, N64, GC, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 games. I'm betting on them announcing even more before or shortly after release. Also, does anyone really expect the PS3 to be completely, flawlessly backward compatible?
Really, I'm just sick of hearing about any of this. And of people giving Zonk and the other editors crap about being biased. THEY'RE EDITORS. THAT'S WHAT EDITORS DO. Have you ever read a newspaper? Most of them have some sort of bias in the articles. Why do you expect it to be any different here?
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
None of Sony's failed media experiments were proprietary. As an OEM, you could always adopt it if you were willing to pay Sony a licensing fee. There is nothing wrong with this, except Sony is willing to sacrifice their console dominance on a bet that they will make more money licensing Blu-Ray. That's some high-stakes gambling. Let's see how it pays out.
I was offended by Sony's horrible DRM/rootkit situation, not because they tried to install rootkits (although that was bad enough) but because of their response when caught: "So what? Consumers won't even comprehend your techno-babble complaints."
I was offended by Sony's horrible pricing for the PS3, not because the pricing was so high (although that was bad enough) but because of their response when people took issue: "So what? Sony fanboys are going to pay no matter what the price."
I was offended by Sony's blatant plagarism of the Wii controller, not because of the 2nd-rate implementation (although... you get the idea), but because of their flat-out lying about it: "We didn't copy Nintendo. We're the real innovators."
All of these situations have a common thread: arrogance. A cavalier disrespect for the customer. A lack of ethics. There are no laws that say companies must be ethical, or must respect the customer. So I guess we can write off Sony's behavior as "it's just business." But there are also no laws which say I have to buy into it. So I hope that what goes around, comes around.
-Tony
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
I think anyone thinking that Sony will launch the already ill-fated PS3 this year is smoking the same stuff as Sony.
How long is it going to take people who write articles to get it?
What's happening with the new dvd format? I don't care. Almost no one who buys a PS3 cares about the blu-ray thing. Really. All we want to know about is the game system.
I'm not sure if they publish these articles to try to create hype about the blu-ray format and associate it with the "cool" Playstation, or if they get published because Sony genuinely believes that anyone cares.
I'm waiting to see who will have the crappier graphics. The PS2 was powerful in theory, but in practice most games looked much worse than on the Xbox. The PS3 is very likely to continue this trend, with its multiple processors and poor development tools.
Nope. 1080p requires HDMI
No. Please read some news from the last weeks.
I didn't bother reading more of your post since you started out so wrong.
So I only have to pay $499 to do... stuff I don't care about + stuff I can already do. Oh boy, where can I preorder.
Why does anyone want Sony dstroyed? We are going to get some awesome titles out in the next two years simply because many ISVs consider the market in the air which applies pressure to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to perform and hunt for the best projects to sponsor. I enjoy the fact that Sony is pushing the technology envelope. Whether or not they are going about it the right way or could have picked a better set of features is a question for historians a couple of years from now. It might all be that Sony was a mere half a year off on their timing to push this stuff but I don't think anyone should stop them from trying.
The writing was on the wall: No matter how 'elite' the PS3 is they were going to lose market position because the competition is strong this time around instead of the limp wristed toss outs Nintendo and Microsoft threw last time. The only thing Sony could do is try to lead which means going out on the limb. They are way out on a thin branch where it might pay off or it might come crashing down.
As many who are going "ha ha!" at Sony's seemingly consistent knack for steping on all of the landmines, no one should relish a gaming world where Microsoft and Sony switch places. Do many of you think Microsoft will treat you better than Sony did if they dominate the space? I guarentee if Microsoft runs away with the market and crushes Sony we'll be back to same quite pace we've seen in the last few years. No thanks...I'll gladly take the three way race.
For $499 you get a PS3 from Sony that:
*Plays 1080p HD BluRay movies over component cables... Until they implement HDCP...
*Plays 1080p games (which has been possible on PC for years)
*All the same exclusive games that 103+ million people bought Playstation 2s for (so why not just play them on that)
*Complate backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation games (when it decideds to work properly)
*Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation 2 games (see above)
*Free online play for all non-MMORPG games. Nothing new here
*Linux. To what end? I'm sure it will be just as huge a success as Linux on PS2 was.......
*Webbrowsing in 1080p on your HD TV monitor and other desktop apps that you run in 1600x1200+ (higher than 1080p) on your PC
*Tilt controller that they copied from Nintendo
Compared to the 200-250 Wii which looks to be fun at parties and can produce graphics that are more than adequate, all the while maintaining an aura of FUN vs just being eye-candy.
Or the XBox 360 which will end up costing you over 700 bucks for the non-worthless version over four to five years, vs a system that will cost you well over $2000 up front to use it to its full potential ($600 for a non-crippled PS3, $200 for a few games, $1200+ on the low end for a TV that supports HDMI so you don't lose 1080p playback when HDCP is implemented). And that doesn't include a keyboard or mouse to actually USE the "other desktop apps" properly. Or the overpriced accessories.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
This is causing me to lose even more respect for Sony (rootkit anyone). I was a loyal PS2 user but if its not one things its another and Sony is really going downhill in my book. Continued delays. Backing losing mediums (I'd rather go with HD-DVD). etc, etc. If I can no longer support Sony and god forbid I buy an Xbox where can I console-game? I guess I should just dig out the old-school Nintendo. I can't use Xbox or Sony anymore on principle.
I didn't bother reading more of your post since you started out so wrong.
IOW: I couldn't find anything else wrong with your post.
They should include the making of Duke Nukem Forever with the Blu-Ray DVD players as both will be out around the same time.
after all, in addition to a new disk format noone sees a need for, and a price way too high for not enough games, you also get wonderful DRM and region-coding to make your life even more meaningful.
I'll be using my inexpensive, less than $250 USD Wii, in the meantime, playing all the really cool games that knock my socks off.
But, on a good note, PS2 sales are still beating the xBox and xBox360 combined, after E3.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Whenever I've seen it used, "Schadenfreude" has implied pleasure in the suffering (or just difficulties) of others -- independent of whether those others deserved to suffer.
Wanting a company to fail because its actions are objectionable is far less amoral -- uh, more moral? -- than that. We're not rooting against Sony because it'll make us feel better about our own failings if they belly flop. We want them to fail because they're behaving in a way that actually offends our sense of how companies should act. Maybe that "moral" thing was real after all: we think they way Sony's acting is wrong. Not illegal, no -- just wrong.
This isn't just a case of wanting to see the bully stumble, either. If Sony had taken Nintendo's approach this time around, I'd be lining up to buy.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
"Compared to the 200-250 Wii which looks to be fun at parties and can produce graphics that are more than adequate, all the while maintaining an aura of FUN vs just being eye-candy."
From all I've been reading the PS3 looks likely to be a long series of frustrations ready to leap out at you almost from the moment that you plug it in, why would I want or need any more hastle in my life? I'll stick with the PS2 for games, I've never used it as a DVD player however.
Kind of a side track but for myself and other Linux users will Blu-Ray ever be usable?
_ rights_management
According to wikipedia among the many horrific things they've done DRM-wise is a change where the keys on players may be dynamically updated once a key has been broken and new media distributed from that point will use new, unbroken keys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Digital
Now I'm not sure how easy it will be for the crackers to get these keys but if it's anything but routine than Linux users will now have to do some sort of research into a disk before they buy it to make sure they can play it. It's even possible that they could have multiple keys in circulation at once making it impossible for a Linux user to know at the time of purchase if the media is even playable!
If this new encrpytion scheme is successful I'm going to have to stick to buying DVDs, and when those stop being sold I guess I'll have to be a pirate.
I stole this Sig
I guess you haven't seen the new God of War, Ookami, and the other PS2 titles at E3. I don't think any other system on the market has better games in the pipe. I've played BF, Lost Planet, etc on 360, and they were pretty boring. Lost Planet looks pretty good, however the whole concept didn't appeal to me. The Xbox 360 doesn't seem to be doing that well in any territory actually. You should really look at the numbers, and it's not just a production problem. In fact Ars recently had an article that dicussed this.
I think people have a blindspot for the Wii. At best they can resell you ROMs you likely already have sitting on your computer. The worst outcome would be that's the only thing their network supports. Remember this isn't HD, so web browsing will be very painful for example. I wonder if anyone over 21 actually wants the wand controller. You really need to recalibrate the 'play' in the controller to your TV size, etc. Still all that repetitive motion isn't like DDR -- people can dance longer than they can wiggle a remote constantly.
As for Zonk. He has a responsibility to inform the public that news he has given you isn't true. The 'PS3 is broken' article is a good example of this. Zonk tries to play it off like this is 1996 instead of 2006. You have to at least pretend to be a responsible journalist, or YOU become a tabloid rag yourself. You can't honestly tell me you can trust anything he posts. If you can't take his posts at face value, then you have to consider all the people that do take it at face value.
* All the same exclusive games that 103+ million people bought Playstation 2s for
* Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation games
* Complete backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation 2 games
I fail to see why people tout this as a reason to buy a PS3. Yes, I love my exclusive PS2 games...and I can continue to play them on my PS2, as I do now. That's not going to convince me to buy a PS3. I'm gonna buy a PS3 when there are games out that I want to play enough to justify the price of said games + the console. Not a moment sooner.
Unlike those other formats, the Blu-Ray disc is nto purely Sony's. As is mentioned in an bove replys, Samsung will have a player out by the end of the month. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Blu-Ray any more than you do, but to say it's a proprietry Sony format is wrong. To say it is a proprietry format of many companies would be more correct
As in Betamax -- all over again! Even if it turns out to be technically better, it might not matter in the long run.
I paid around $500 for a Sanyo 1080i widescreen CRT set (800 lines vertical resolution with a test pattern) that supports HDCP over the HDMI. It has a QaM (digital cable) and ATSC tuner built-in to boot. I think it is 27 inches diagonal or so. It looks better than a neighbor's Sony HD CRT. Anyway, HD sets are dropping in price, you no longer need to pay more than a grand.
But the article refers to the release of a stand-alone Blu-Ray player. Are they out of their minds? The people who would be interested in upgrading from DVD to Blu-Ray have already upgraded to HD DVD. Why are they releasing a stand-alone Blu-Ray player? I'll eat my shoes if this thing doesn't flop. Seriously.
I'm over 21 and am itching to play with it. So are a lot of my over 21 friends. Even my completely non-gamer girlfriend (ZOMGWTFBBQ someone on
And people can wiggle a remote longer than they can push joysticks and buttons. DDR is also a single game, whereas the remote will be used for a wide variety of games. Really, we're just trading one repetative motion for another.
Very true. However, I see this sort of thing on NEARLY EVERY article Zonk posts. Yes, some of them are crap. Again, I see the same thing everywhere else. I just think people expect an unreasonable lack of bias. Sure he posts a lot of anti-Sony articles. But, then again, they are doing a lot of dumb stuff lately. Really, anything you didn't see or hear from the original source with your own eyes and ears should be taken with a grain of salt. This should be common knowledge.
I don't think I mentioned this at all. In fact I totally agree with you. I think the only reason I even mentioned Microsoft was to point out the fact that the parent was a Sony fanboy.
Everything I say is a lie. Except that... and that... and that, and that, and that, and that... and that.
I'm going to have to wait even longer not to buy a Blu Ray unit?
Crap. I was really anxious to opt out of provider-updateable DRM ("Self-Protecting Digital Content") sooner rather than later.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=884
Pi Ran Out
Only a moron would spend $1,000 for a blu-ray player right now in my opinion.
What are you going to do with it? Watch one of the handfull of shitty movies that are out for it?
Wait 2 or 3 years and you'll get it for 1/4 that price and there will actually be something worth watching assuming the format doesn't completely fucking flop.
I have been reading a lot of comments about this being a strategy of Sony's -- push back the stand-alone player's date and the PS3 will sell because of its low price and inclusion of Blue Ray. But does anyone else realize how poor of a strategy that is? They're practically sabotaging their stand-alone for the console! Not to be pessimistic, folks, but I think Sony's console days are numbered.
*Webbrowsing in 1080p on your HD TV monitor and other desktop apps that you run in 1600x1200+ (higher than 1080p) on your PC
Widescreen 1080p is 1920*1080, which equals 2073600 pixels.
1600*1200 equals 1920000 pixels.
So, 1080p on a widescreen television is slightly higher of a "resolution", if you're counting pixels. Still though, any modern video card will easily push well beyond this, thus validating your point.
Mmmm, -funroll-loops
Here's a scenario where Blu-Ray movies matter to you:
year 1
1. Sony releases ps3 at high price point to include Blu-Ray, in order to justify premium price of $500-600.
2. Bleeding edge consumers buys all PS3's in first year.
3. Developers only sell a few million ps3 games because of low penetration.
4. x360 price drop.
5. Sony still losing money on ps3. Everyone publishing hd-dvd movies, because Blu-Ray too expensive. ps3 stays at $500.
year 2
1. X360, Wii games lower prices, X360 already has 'Greatest Hits' line (or whatever).
2. Sony's Blu-Ray games still $60.
3. Publishers publishing more for Wii, XLive.
4. Many normal consumers buying $1000 TVs decide X360's games look great and there are more of them, and they are cheaper. And they can still play Madden.
5. Sony can finally afford console price drop. Blu-Ray players cheaper, but still too expensive ($500). Everyone's buying hd-dvds.
year 3
1. hd-dvd production already dirt cheap. Movies and players are promoted at Walmart on Black Friday. Not enough Blu-Rays being burned to drop prices, so...
2. With X360 games half the price and about equal quality, MS is starting to roll in the US, Europe. Wii is rolling in Japan. PS3 publishers are still losing money in some cases due to disc costs and development costs, and too many sequels are released among the few 'A' titles.
In other words, you NEED Blu-Ray movies to succeed for the PS3 to succeed. Because if Sony can't get movies rolling, you'll never see games below $30. Because it's easy to forget this in the age of cd-r's and dvd-r's, but discs cost money. And Blu-Ray discs cost a lot of money. So publishers will make less money on every Blu-Ray game.
If we look at the current console success, it's clear that Blu-Ray is a potential stumbling block. And with popular broadband and hdds in every console, I think we will see episodic gaming, and that will mean even fewer Blu-Ray discs burned per ps3, which means higher game prices for a longer period of time.
They also explained that the Blu-Ray player was delayed to coincide with the release of their new line of Bravia flat-screen TVs.
Geez... Isn't the gloom and doom stuff getting old?
Repeat after me... It's only a game console... It's only an evolutionary step from DVD technology... It is not oxygen, we can wait and see what happens...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
HD-DVD has been out for a month, and is reportedly "selling well" but that is, relatively well for an early adopter product. They are not moving huge volumes. The only players on the market are from Toshiba, with a "budget" $500 model and a "premium" $800 model.
The real market for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD is for 1080p HDTV owners. Upscaling DVD looks good on a 720p TV, and the maximum broadcast quality will be 1080i. The only place to get 1080p quality content will be Blu-ray or HD-DVD, and the cheaper Toshiba players will not even put out 1080p. All the Blu-ray players announced will feature 1080p, and are meant to have high build quality and high quality components, so that the early adopters who have 1080p sets will want them, because they have money, and want the best.
So, if the SONY unit is delayed until August, it just means that there will only be 1 Blu-ray player on the market for the first few months, and Samsung will have higher sales initially. Samsung also is making some very competitive 1080p HDTV sets, so look for some bundling and cross-promotion.
When the first Blu-ray movies are released with the Samsung player at the end of this month, the home theater sites and publications will compare the image quality, sound quality, and content of Blu-ray movies with the existing HD-DVD releases. There is a good chance that Blu-ray will look better, and win the favor of the early adopter technophile market. Over the next couple of years the percentage of HDTV sets that support 1080p will increase, driving demand for the highest quality content. The 50GB Blu-ray disc will support more movie content, and higher bitrate (less agressive compression, fewer compression artifacts), resulting in better image quality than HD-DVD.
Where does PS3 come in? As we know, the cheaper $500 PS3 will not have HDMI, so it is intended not to compete with the high-end Blu-ray players, but it will provide a huge market for Blu-ray discs. This will eventually bring prices down, so that 3 years from now, when the majority HDTVs are 1080p, and there are even 1080p sets for under $1000, then stand-alone blu-ray players will sell for $200-$300, and start to become mass market item.
That is my prediction.
I live in Canada and the announced price of the Samsung BD-P1000 is C$1299 versus C$699 for already released Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player. That's almost double the price! Why would I pay C$600 more for the Bluray player, especially when you factor in that all the major movie studios have announced support for both formats? $1299 for a DVD player, that just insane.
Granted, the Bluray movies have an expected price of around C$20 versus C$30-$35 for HD-DVD, but I could still purchase fifteen to twenty HD-DVD movies for the difference in the price of the Bluray player. I would also expect that if HD-DVD takes off, the price of movies will drop to that of the Bluray titles.
That price is even more insane when you consider that the release of the PS3 at ~C$700 is sure to cannibalize sales at half the price. Why not just sell the Bluray player at that price? It's going to make those that buy a player now feel like idiots come November. Is HD really worth spending $1300 bucks on (and there are only a handful of titles to choose from)?
I still don't understand Sony's strategy here.
It's "LOSE"--you FUCKING moron. Lose, losing, lost... If I ever find the public school textbook from 1983 that contained this typo, I'm going to start a national campaign to cleanse the Internet of this monstrosity... C'mon sheeple, it's not that difficult...
I think the argument is that, if this player is going to be $1000 at launch, and it's launch date is pushed out even closer to the PS3 launch, early adopters might just forgo the stand alone player and buy a PS3 instead.
But that would be my question as to how it hurts Sony if instead of buying Sony gear, you buy other Sony gear! I mean that doesn't make any sense from either the standpoint of Sony loosing sales, or in terms of Blu-Ray having fewer players because every PS3 sold Sony can point to as another blu-ray player in the market. That's the whole point of having a Blu-Ray player in every PS3, to increase sheer number of households that CAN play Blu-Ray discs, even if in reality they do not. It helps convince media makers to support the format even if initial sales are somewhat low.
An argument I could see being made is that people might buy other players instead (as has been noted other Blu-Ray players are coming ut sooner) but I don't think that will hurt PS3 sales as long as these other players cost as much as or more than PS3 units (since part of the allure the PS3 has over other consoles is that you can use it for Blu-Ray discs).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As has been noted elsewhere though other players are coming out shortly - just not Sony. Blu-Ray discs are still arriving on the 20th according to Amazon and the first player shortly after, so some of the buzz can start building.
Each player is kind of a gamble though as the first HD-DVD player (in my mind) generated a negative buzz because it seemed sort of awful to actually use, even if the quality was good. I would say Sony was better off delaying the standalone player if the interface was not up to snuff rather than risk a scathing debut - especially in a market today with bloggers aplenty looking to trumpet anything that looks even vaguley wrong with all things Sony.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"I like to import games and movies from Japan, and with a PS3 I don't have to modchip anything."
Unless, of course (for example) they decide to only ship Japanese games with Japanese language instead. You're jumping the gun a bit there. Sony need to get the cost of the PS3 back through selling games. They're probably going to be pissed off about grey imports.
The whole point of modchips is to be able to play the games as they are straight from Japan, which means 100% all Japanese games (Ok, rare exceptions may already include english text but I doubt it would happen often). The PS3 and US are in the same region for games and movies so you'll not need a modchip to do exactly what people pay extra money to do today. So your "unless" makes no sense because that's exactly what the parent poster was expecting - games with 100% Japanese text and audio, that he can buy outright from importers. That he could go into any Japanese game store and buy a PS3 title and have it work here.
Historically, every console sold at the price of the PS3 has failed.
Statstically, your sample size sucks and the drivers behind a purchase of a PS3 are totally differnet than, say, a 3DO or Neo-Geo. Not to mention you may have utterly forgotten to correlate in size of companies backing the various consoles, which may be more of an indicator of success than console price - after all, the Saturn was reasonably priced. Perhaps the 360 is the new Saturn.
It's not going to have as many exclusive games, and it truly flopped at E3. It really looks like it's not going to do anywhere near as well as the PS2.
I imagine Zonk may be as pissed off with Sony's arrogance and appalling attitude to it's customers as the rest of us.
Zonk Sad. Zonk now talk in third person just like Hulk!
I think it's pretty funny to state outright it's not going to do as well as the PS2 when we know so little about so much any of the factors that makes such a statement true - like how the new original exclusive titles will be ('cause you are just talking about exclusive EXISTING franchises like GTA, indeed perhaps ONLY GTA) or the online services (which you admit you have seen nothing of).
Open your eyes to some possibilities. You are seriously embarssing yourself and the original poster has a good point about how very stupid you are going to look if the PS3 actually does well (which is why you posted AC so there is no record of your predicitve failure to be searched for).
Basically you just want Sony to die and are grasping at straws for reasons why that might come to pass, then passing that off as absolutes. I say wait for the games, wait for the services and then we'll see if the PS3 will do well or not. Right now there are just too many variables to be certain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"A few" (2-6 titles) have been released every week since HD DVD's launch.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
This is the company that thought it was acceptable to install rootkits on peoples' computers, as if the computers belonged to them, all in the name of preventing imagined losses that are their own faults for bad treatment of customers and for selling inferior products.
No, that was Sony/BMG and not Sony games. I seriously doubt the rootkit made it up to the president of all of Sony before it was released, I'm not even sure if the president of the Sony/BMG division even knew that much before it went in (though it's more likley).
Basically if your brother robs a bank shoudld you also go to jail because you live in the same house?
Want to punish Sony/BMG? Fine, boycott the music and punish the whole division - but give the innocent games division some slack.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First of all, it's "lose money".
Second of all I doubt they are losing any money at $600 a piece.
And despite what you have read, Sony doesn't have a history of losing money on their consoles. Break even, yes. Losing money, nope.
Although I have to think PSP breaks that mold. But I have no proof of it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
1) It means they sell PS3's to people not interested in playing games, causing Sony to loose money
2) It means that the blu-ray format won't be as established, meaning that gamers won't see the blu-ray format as something in the "pro" column when the console first ships
1) I have doubts that Sony will lose any money on each console sold, that has been shown to be a myth for any example I can think of. They may sell near cost but companies do not really lose money on consoles sold. And even if they did, selling movies makes money back the exact same way selling games does, it's just that sony has a smaller percentage of the total market (as not all movies sold would be Sony owned, though many will be).
2) Again the "Blu-Ray market" is how many blu-ray players are out in the market, in peoples houses. Every PS3 sold is another blu-ray player in a house as far as SOny is concerned, and studios as well. That's a consumer that can be convinced to buy a Blu-Ray disc because they have the equipment to make use of it.
I'm also not sure what you mean by the "pro" column since both models of PS3 ($500 and $600) will be able to play Blu-Ray movies at full resolution. There's an open question as to wether the $500 model will be able to do movies in 1080p (though that should work for games) or 1080i. There's no question however that it will support the full 1920x1080 resolution because movie studios are not turning on the ICT flag for years to come - if ever. So if you are going to buy a PS3 to play Blu-Ray discs you may as well buy a cheaper model now and if they ever do enable the flag simply buy a sub-$100 standalone Blu-Ray player if that event comes to pass in the distant future.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If blu-ray and HD-DVD are only an evolutionary step up from DVDs, why are they so bloody expensive?
Let's see: $1,000 blu-ray player or $45 DVD player ($150 for a near top-of-the-line one)?
Then it will probably be $35-45 per disc versus $10-20 for DVDs.
No thanks. Sony and the HD-DVD consortium and both go suck eggs. DVDs are great and they are totally commodity now.
Anybody who expects consumers to get up en-masse and replace their media collections with slightly sharper, more-DRM-encumbered versions that cost twice as much and require technology 10x as expensive to play them, is going to be disappointed. (By the way, I only know one person who gives a fig about either of these new formats--and he's an HD-nut with his own blog about HD technologies).
I'm about to splash out on a new Panasonic Viera 42" or 50" - Sony's Bravias may look nicer being all black, but thanks to their rootkit they are not getting my hard earned bucks. The picture quality is absolutely amazing, that's the main thing.
:D
Now, there's just NO way I'm paying a $1k on top of this to get Sony's _1st_ generation DVD player - on top of being Sony! I'm much more inclined to hold back a little and pick up a HDDVD player - or set up a HTPC with one - if titles start popping up at reasonable prices, and just make do with Australia's broadcasted HDTV material in the mean time.
Besides that, the Viera features a new upscaler which will make the transition slightly less painful. Of course it won't be perfect, but compared to my old 21" flat CRT it's going to rock my world anyhow
[Moderated, thus posting AC]
Yes, that's means they are planning on making $400 profit on each standalone BR player.
That's how it works in the early days.
You may have a part you can make for a certain price, but only so many of them. So you raise the price of the product to moderate demand to match supply. Yes, that entails higher profit per unit.
Besides, I don't recall Sony being a charity in the first place.
If you don't like paying that much, don't early adopt.
Sony has sold a BluRay recorder/player in Japan for about a year at a listed price of $5K. I dunno how many they sold, but I'm sure there was some profit in there too.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
1) Really? So those negative balance figures on Sony's balance sheet surrounding the launch of the PS1 and PS2 are a myths? Their forward looking statements anticipating losses due to selling the hardware at a loss are made up?
R&D costs are different than per-unit costs. The Playstation has never sold below the cost to make it, it's just a matter then of making back the R&D costs.
2) You're missing the point. There is no blu-ray market without blu-ray players. Which means when people are making a decision about which GAME CONSOLE to buy, the ability to play non-existant blu-ray movies isn't a factor.
But it's not that simple because the Blu-Ray aspect does enter into the equation regardless - I know it does for me. For example, Cars just came out this weekend and if any Pixar films are going to come out in HD it's going to be on Blu-Ray. So even if there were no players by that point (which there will be) being a Blu-Ray player as well is of some additional value, even if your primary interest in games and no pixar films have actually been released yet - it's like getting that Blu-Ray part for a small additional charge, plus of course in evaluation of the system knowing it has far more storage than other consoles for game data is something to consider as well.
I mean pro as in "pro"/"con" (advantage/disadvantage). I would also point out that just because something isn't in the "pro" column doesn't mean it is in the "con" column. It means that it isn't even on the list of things to consider.
I see, thanks for the clarification on the "pro", I misunderstood what you were getting at there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/17/ 0020225
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
Guess what? You got a fever. And the only prescription...is more wiki.
why is everyone so retarded.. id swear you all worked for MS and where just trolling on sony by the sounds of this.
hmm let me see $1000 for a blu-ray or $400 for ps3 that plays blu-ray..
most people will then go for the ps3 and since they have a ps3 might as well by some games.
if anything its smart, people will buy the cheaper product, they will want it because its the new cool format that is advertised on tv.
this is the modern consumer, this is how they act.
if anything the ps3 will put nails in everyones coffins.
and if you all dont work for MS and are just complaining, well its because your idiots to not have realized this is what sony is planning.
and the fact is i dont know a gamer who is not salivating over the ps3 so everyone i have heard is full of shit.
im not a sony fan-boy im just not the average geek who has no friends other then the computer in front of them and actually hear what people have to say because i can socialize. im the legedary social geek a previously thought to not exist species of geek that can actually hang out with people without pissing them off by acting like i know everything...
maybe im just an asshole.. but still im right about sony, and you
*Complate backwards compatibility with 8000+ Playstation games (when it decideds to work properly)What do you mean by "same exclusive games"? You obviously don't mean same exclusive series. Yeah, you can play Metal Gear Solid 2 on the PS2 and not buy the PS3, but if you want to continue the story, then you'll want Metal Gear Solid 4. That, and games just get old after playing them 30+ times.
*Free online play for all non-MMORPG games. Nothing new hereYeah, because you totally have a Playstation 3 that doesn't work with your original Playstation games to make that statement.
*Linux. To what end? I'm sure it will be just as huge a success as Linux on PS2 was.......Except that Xbox Live charges $5 a month. You know, after 5 years (average console lifespan), that averages out to an extra $250 on the console. Nothing new sure is right, if you just like making stuff up that is.
*Tilt controller that they copied from NintendoLinux wasn't included on the PS2, was meant for hobbyist and Linux enthusiasts, and sold for $200. That just might have something to do with Linux on the PS2 not being a success.
Compared to the 200-250 Wii which looks to be fun at parties and can produce graphics that are more than adequate, all the while maintaining an aura of FUN vs just being eye-candy.Except that they filed a patent for the PS3 tilt controller back in 1999 and there was also a news article in 2003 that suggested the PS3 may have motion-sensing technology. Yep, they totally ripped off Nintendo again.
Or the XBox 360 which will end up costing you over 700 bucks for the non-worthless version over four to five years, vs a system that will cost you well over $2000 up front to use it to its full potential ($600 for a non-crippled PS3, $200 for a few games, $1200+ on the low end for a TV that supports HDMI so you don't lose 1080p playback when HDCP is implemented). And that doesn't include a keyboard or mouse to actually USE the "other desktop apps" properly. Or the overpriced accessories.How do you know the Wii will be fun? Yeah, Nintendo is a game company and Sony is an electronics company, but just because Sony is selling the PS3 as a media center rather than selling it as "just a game machine", doesn't make the Wii any more fun. Unless, of course, whatever some high-ranking Sony executive says somehow displeases you to the point where gameplay is actually hindered. But I doubt you (or anyone else for that matter) are that shallow, right?
Yes, the 1080p support is a feature of the PS3, but that doesn't mean you should run out and get a 1080p capable television (Sony thinks you should and wants you to, but again, are you shallow enough to be affected by someone making 8 figures a year and on the otherside of the planet has to say about what you want to buy?). And is it really important to include "overpriced accessories", considering that ALL console accessories are overpriced? And the keyboard and mouse support is a good thing. I can tell you it will be much better than a controller pad when it comes to First Person Shooters.
It's really sad to see something like that modded up as "Insightful" when it lacks logic. But then again, anything anti-Sony gets modded up, regardless of how outlandish the comment is.
why is everyone so retarded.. id swear you all worked for MS and where just trolling on sony by the sounds of this.
You know I feel the same way, I am not "OMG MICR0$LOFT IS TEH EVIL" Microsoft hater(i'm quite content using Windows and MS' products), but with all the FUD and mudslinging I wonder if this is true.
They have done astroturfing in the past(not like they couldn't still be doing it), and they do love using viral marketing(it is just more then ARGs).... I could see them generating a impression that the PS3 is universally hated. To be fair I can also see why people would hate it, the price isn't too "good"(but $100 more isn't that bad when compaired to what the Xbox360 bundles went for), and they did drop a lot of features some of us wanted (more then one video output, for another monitor)... But I really have doubts about the ammount of noise people are making over this...
Seriously, slashdotters whinne about Sony, and yet ignore the facts that Microsoft is doing the same thing with its proprietary, DRMed HD-DVD format. Hummm, now that I think about it that seems odd....
Oh, how about because I don't have a PS2.
If PS3 was coming out for £150 or less and was backwards compatible I'd happily queue up to buy one at launch.
I was planning on skipping the even-numbered consoles, not least because the PS2 is a pretty lame games machine in itself (only two controller ports - wtf. disc read errors. no vga adaptor.) but has great games.
Now I'm waiting to see what the Wii games and price are like, and getting a PS2 and/or a Wii. And later a PS4, assuming the PS3 even does well enough to warrant a sequel.
Um, the PS3 is broken. It lists the machine as having "512MB of RAM", however only 256MB is readable at descent speeds by the main CPU. The XBox360 has 512MB of RAM, and all of that is accessible by the main CPU. Sounds like Sony messed up their PS3 design to me.
Oh, how about because I don't have a PS2.
With 100 million+ PS2's sold you are in the vast minority of gamers. If Sony is marketing the PS3 as a machine to play PS2 games for people that haven't yet played those games, that's pretty ridiculous.
Also, if you want a PS2, they are easy enough to get. And cheap - on my local craigslist board I see them offered for $150 with tons of accessories and 10+ games all the time. No need to buy a $500 or $600 PS3.
R&D costs are incurred before the console ships, not after. If you can find quarterly earnings statements from Sony between 2000 and 2001, look at their games division around the time the PS2 started to ship. You'll discover that they ended up roughly a billion dollars in the hole the first 2 quarters after the PS2 started shipping. They broke even in the 3rd quarter if I recall correctly, and have been raking it in ever since (there was a large dip in net income the quarter they launched in the US, but it didn't hit negative figures).
Yes but you're allowed to spread losses over time, which they would do to offset income generated from the consoles. I trust in what you are saying (a rarity on the internet I know) but I just interpret the numbers differently.
For you, you ALREADY want a blu-ray player, so in this case it is still icing on the cake. For someone else comparing features between consoles, it isn't going to be as big of a factor if the content isn't already out there.
But the content will be out there, it's arriving June 20th in fact (according to Amazon). And some of the titles are kind of compelling, like Terminiator and T2. By the time of the PS3 launch there should be quite a few more titles out and I can see some bundles with the PS3 and a free Blu-Ray movie to gain some traction on that front. So I think my the time of the PS3 launch Blu-Ray will be a part of tha tequation because Sony will make it so via marketing and product tie-ins.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sony have shot themselves, again, in the foot.
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
I'm not sure why I bothered to explain it at all. You just didn't read it (or comprehend it), hit reply and posted nonsense.
Early devices have large amounts of (gross) profit attached to them. Because they know supplies will be limited, and demand will be fulfilled even at the high prices. The high gross profit probably doesn't cover R&D costs at these low volumes, making it a net loss. But regardless, the unit is not sold "at a loss", since after the R&D is done, not selling it wouldn't decrease the loss, so the units are not contributing any loss.
I'll explain it again. Let's say you have a part. It has a fixed price, and a fixed supply. You know you can't get any more. You know you can sell more than you can get. So you can easily raise the price to moderate demand. A great example is Xbox 360. They simply couldn't get any more RAM. So they could have charged $600+ per unit, which would have increased their profit per unit, and as long as all the units sold (they sold for this price anyway, retailers just took the profit) they would have made MORE money.
But by your limited world-view, this can't happen.
AGAIN:
"Whatever the market will bear."
With early-adopter type devices, don't assume the pricing of the unit has anything to do with the cost of goods.
So, as to your point, yes, the standalone BR player is 40% gross profit.
I bought the first (mass-market) DVD player Sony made. (DVP-S7000). It was $900. Sony made a ton of money selling these. Probably even 40%, as a player with nearly identical internals was sold within a year at only $600 (DVP-S3000).
PS3 will not be a loss leader. Xbox 360 isn't a loss leader. These prices are high enough that they actually do cover the cost of goods. They don't cover development costs, I'm sure. That's why they sell games and movies, to get that money back.
I don't think PSP was intended to be a loss leader. It might have been at launch at $200 (it was a forced $250 bundle in the US with some high-margin accessories, thus solving that problem). I don't think now that they are losing money on it anymore, even at $200. Still, I bet they'd make a lot more if they got rid of that UMD drive...
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Thanks for the report link, I'll look that over... some good things to think about there.
It will be interesting to see what Blu-Ray retail presence ends up looking like.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley