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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.
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?
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.
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
What comes around, well, comes around.
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.
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 &
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.
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.
People buying the PS3 for games see a $500-600 system that's the most expensive "new console" out there. By a lot. Heck, there'll still be PS2 systems sitting on shelves this Christmas, and so now they've got to compare a $129 (if it doesn't drop to $99) system to a $500-600 system? Yah. So it's fair to say that the only section of this market they'll get are the ones that have loads of money to throw away, or Sony fanboys. By any measure, that's a niche portion of the market.
People buying the system for Blu-ray capabilities are going to start off as a small market anyway, as it's a $500-600 movie player. But at that point, you're getting someone who wants a top-end home theatre system, and is willing to throw money at it. Now there'll be $1000 standalone players, and a $500-600 PS3. Does Sony really think that those kind of people are going to be swayed by the "ooh, it's $400 cheaper" argument? Of course not - they spent $1500 on an HDTV with marginal amounts of programming available for it. They'll go after the $1000 Blu-ray player, which will be advertised as a "better player" than the PS3. Hint for any Circuit City employees, it's easy enough to just reference the PS2's disc read error issues as well as the poor quality of the DVD output and the compatibility issues it had with certain DVDs, and you'll get people looking at the Blu-ray player instead. So here, again, they're targeting a niche portion of a small market.
I think describing the PS3 as a "cheap" Blu-ray player is the easiest way to keep videophiles from buying them. They'd be better off with standalone Blu-ray players being $500-600. At $400 less, now they just look like there's something wrong with them.
A lot of others have stated plenty of valid reasons. However, their HW is crap. I bought an AV receiver that not only died but it took my high-end JBL speakers out with it. That thing had a joke for a heatsink. After watching one movie, the case of that thing was literally hot enough to burn. Looking into this model (not a low-end model either) on the web, it seems others had the same heat problems with this receiver. I replaced it with a Yamaha and that works great.
I have a Sony DVD player that won't play a lot of DVDs. One CD player that didn't make it past 3 years old before it croaked.
I USED to be a Sony fan but I resent giving them good money for crap.
So, where is this FUD you were talking about?
Also the PS2's (deserved) reputation as a crap DVD player will attract no one - If the PS2 was so bad at playing DVDs when it wasn't even a first-generation player, how good will the PS3 be at playing Blu-Ray?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"